The undisputed star of Groundhog Day is Punxsutawney Phil and the celebration is held annually at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. The festival surrounding Phil’s prognostication was immortalized in the 1993 Bill Murray movie, “Groundhog Day.”
Here are a few fun facts:
1. Groundhog Day is a popular tradition celebrated in the Canada and the United States on February 2.
2. For 2019, the groundhog is set to come out at 7:25am on February 2.
3. The first reported news of a Groundhog Day observance was made by the Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania in 1886.
4. It derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerging from its burrow on this day sees a shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat to its den and winter will persist for six more weeks, and if it does not see its shadow because of cloudiness, spring will arrive early.
5. The 1993 film Groundhog Day helped boost recognition of the custom.
6. In Canada, Wiarton Willie, an albino rodent from Wiarton, Ontario, on the Bruce Peninsula is the most famous groundhog and has been predicting the weather since 1956.
7. The largest Groundhog Day celebration is held in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, (Gobbler’s Knob) where crowds as large as 40,000 gather each year, nearly eight times the year-round population of the town.
8. Punxsutawney Phil is the most famous groundhog in the USA — in the more than 130 years of groundhog forecasting in Punxsutawney, there have been 103 shadows (which means six more week of winter) and 18 no shadows (which means early spring).
Happy Groundhog Day!!!
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