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It’s Groundhog Day, and here are a few stats and facts to help celebrate.
1. Don’t put too much stock in Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction. He’s been making them since 1886, and he’s only been right 35% of the time. So you’d be better off flipping a coin. (And that’s what PETA would prefer they do. Last month, they also suggested replacing Phil with a giant hologram.)
2. If you include multiple Groundhog Day groundhogs . . . not just Phil . . . the overall predictions are right 52% of the time, which is a little better. Together, the consensus has supposedly been correct in FOUR out of the past five years.
3. Yup, if you didn’t know there are a lot of regional, weather-predicting groundhogs AND other animals. And Phil is actually one of the least accurate ones. (You can find a rundown we did on them last year, here.)
4. Unfortunately for Phil fans and truthers, the “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration” says the groundhog has “no predictive skill.” He’s only gotten it right about 30% of the time over the past 10 years.
5. Still, 4% of people believe Phil is ALWAYS 100% right. (???) And the Groundhog Club claims he’s NEVER wrong . . . they say it’s THEIR fault for misinterpreting his language, “Groundhogese.”
6. Last year, Phil spotted his shadow, signaling “six more weeks of winter.” That’s the USUAL prediction.
Coming into today, he’d seen his shadow 109 times, plus one “partial shadow” in 1942. He’s only said “no shadow” 20 times that we know of. There are 10 years where there’s no record.
7. They used to EAT Phil after he made his prediction. Which isn’t cool. They served him up after the first official Groundhog Day back in the 1880s, and said he was quite “tender.”
8. Despite that fact, officials at the Groundhog Club claim he’s immortal. He supposedly drinks something called the “Elixir of Life” every summer, and they’ve been using the same groundhog all these years.
9. Phil has a wife. Her name is “Phyllis.” They’ve never had kids. The Groundhog Club says she doesn’t drink the Elixir of Life and ISN’T immortal.
10. The Gobbler’s Knob event attracts thousands of people. The record was around 50,000 last year.
It’s been attracting tens of thousands of people for a while, but before the Bill Murray movie came out 33 years ago, only around 2,000 people were showing up for it.
(USA Today / History / Weather.com / Groundhog.org / Yesterday’s America)
(By the way, if you’re in the mood to re-watch “Groundhog Day”, it’s streaming on Netflix and Philo. It’s also available for rent on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Fandango at Home, and YouTube.)
