Punxsutawney Phil, the seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary, saw his shadow this morning on Gobblers Knob and predicted six more weeks of winter.
Groundhog day historians weren’t too surprised by the appearance of a shadow. The Inquisitr reported yesterday that Punxsutawney Phil has seen his shadow 100 times since the tradition started and has only not seen his shadow 16 times. As far as his accuracy percentage, the groundhog has only been right 39% of the time. (The Punxsutawney Groundhog club disagrees, however, claiming that the legendary rodent has never been wrong.)
And although the Groundhog sees more winter in the future, forecasters see nothing but sunshine. The temperature is expected to approach 50 degrees this week in Chicago.
The Associated Press reports that more than 15,000 people climbed Gobblers Knob this morning to watch the seers of seers make his prediction. The gathering at Gobblers Knob has been in the 10,000 ever since “Groundhog Day” starring Bill Murray was released in 1993. The year before the movie about 2000 people showed up to watch Punxsutawney Phil predict the weather.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett said:
“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 time-honored Groundhog Day tradition.”
Here’s a clip from “Groundhog Day.”
Do you think we’ll have six more weeks of winter?