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Groundhog Day!
The verdict is in: Punxsutawney Phil predicts 6 more weeks of winter. Here are some fun facts about all the fuss over this furry celebrity and his day in the spotlight:
Where exactly is Punxsutawney? Punxsutawney is located in Western Pennsylvania, about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
How did Phil get his name? His full name is “Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators and Weather Prophet Extraordinary.” It was so proclaimed by the “Punxsutawney Groundhog Club” in 1887, the same year they declared Punxsutawney to be the weather capital of the world.
What’s so special about Feb. 2? Celestially speaking, Groundhog Day on Feb. 2 is a “cross-quarter” day, about halfway between the winter solstice in December and the vernal equinox in March, and is celebrated in some cultures as the midpoint of winter. It’s not far from the time many groundhogs end their hibernation anyway, around the second week of February.
Has the 1993 film affected the animal’s popularity? In the years following the release of Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray, crowds numbering as high as 30,000 have visited Gobbler’s Knob, a tiny hill in Punxsutawney where the ceremony takes place.
How do you know it is really Phil at Gobbler’s Knob? For most of the year, Phil lives in a climate-controlled home at the Punxsutawney Library. He is taken to Gobbler’s Knob and placed in a heated burrow underneath a simulated tree stump on stage before being pulled out at 7:25 am on Groundhog Day, February 2, to make his prediction.
How old is Phil anyway? Phil is reputed by townspeople to be more than 100 years old, surviving beyond a marmot’s normal life span thanks to the strong constitution of his wife, Phyllis, and a steady diet of Groundhog Punch.
sources: www.about.com; http://www.news.cornell.edu; http://www.huffingtonpost.com
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