Gathers come together to see Punxsutawney Phil as predicts 6 more weeks of winter at the 126th annual Groundhog Day Festivity.
Every morning I wake up and by habit the first thing I do is check my twitter. I came across a few trending topics…#groundhogday, #PunxsutawneyPhil. Today’s Groundhog Day! Unfortunately I am unable to attend todays class, but instead I thought it would be interesting if I wrote a little about Groundhog Day since it is somewhat relevant to our course.
Ground Hog Day takes its roots in a German superstition from 1887 that says if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on February 2nd, the Christian holiday of Candlemas, winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow is seen, legend says, spring will come early.
At 7:25 this morning, ground hog Phil of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, came out of his borough to find his shadow. Based on tradition, this calls for another 6 more weeks of winter. Taking into consideration the warm and bipolar weather we’ve been having, this is a little ironic, huh?
What started as a small gathering in 1887 has now evolved into tens of thousands of visitors from around the nation and even the world coming to Punxsutawney to participate in this Groundhog Day tradition.
Cool fact, Ground Hog Phil has seen his shadow 100 times and has not seen it 16 times since 1886.
Interestingly, both Canadian groundhogs did not see their respective shadows. Which means we have 5 weeks and 6 days of winter left. 😉
No!!!! I miss south america!!….There’s no winter there. However, I don’t understand how an animal could predict the weather; for me, this is a vague cultural tradition.