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Punxsutawney Phil has declared that there will be an additional six weeks of winter instead of an early spring.
Every year on February 2, the groundhog emerges from his burrow to see whether or not he sees his own shadow as a way to predict the weather. This year was the 139th year in the history of the famous woodchuck doing so, also given the name Groundhog Day.
This year, he had seen his shadow resulting in the prediction of a longer winter.
Prior to 2025, the groundhog had seen his shadow 107 times and not seen his shadow 21 times. There were a few years in the late 1800s when there was no record of his forecast, and 1943 was the only year in which he failed to make an appearance.
Legend says that if Phil does not see his shadow, the weather will get warmer faster and there will be an early spring, and if he does, winter will continue for the next six weeks.
In addition to Punxsutawney Phil, there are also other groundhogs across the nation: Buckeye Chuck in Ohio, General Beauregard Lee in Georgia, and Staten Island Chuck in New York, who all emerged from burrows Sunday morning to predict either the continuing winter or coming spring.
However, not all of the groundhogs were able to reach a consensus this year. Buckeye Chuck and Staten Island Chuck had predicted an early spring while Phil and General Beauregard Lee predicted a longer winter.
Despite Phil’s many years of experience, his predictions are only accurate around 35 percent of the time, according to data analyzed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) while Chuck’s predictions are accurate 85 percent of the time.
Since 1886, crowds as large as 40,000 have annually gathered in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, on the morning of 2 February to watch Punxsutawney Phil emerge from a burrow on Gobbler’s Knob.
In recent years, the annual festival has even been live-streamed to people as early as six in the morning, as members of the top hat-wearing Inner Circle announce the groundhog’s “forecast.”
However, what made this year so special was that it was Phil’s first Groundhog Day as a father.
In March 2024, the woodchuck had welcomed two newborn groundhogs with his partner Phyllis, marking the first groundhog to do so since 1886, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.
At the time the famous groundhog’s Facebook page made the announcement, writing, “We have Babies!! The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club is very excited to announce that Phil and Phyllis have given birth to two healthy baby Groundhogs!”
“When we went in to feed them their fresh fruits and vegetables, we found Phyllis with two little baby groundhogs. It was very unexpected; we had no idea that she was pregnant,” Thomas Dunkel, the president of Punxsutawney Groundhog Club’s Inner Circle told CBS News at the time.
The Groundhog Day prediction can be traced back to the Christian religious holiday of Candlemas Day, when Christians would take their candles to the church to have them blessed. It wasn’t until Candlemas Day was introduced in Germany that an animal was brought into the lore, claiming that if a hedgehog saw his shadow on Candlemas Day there would be a “Second Winter” or six more weeks of bad weather.
After German settlers came to what is now the United States, the Pennsylvania Dutch, and other German-speaking immigrants maintained the same tradition of Groundhog Day. But with the absence of hedgehogs in their new home, woodchucks were chosen instead.
