How Accurate are America's Most Famous Groundhogs?

On the second of February every year, we pretend that a groundhog can tell us what kind of weather we will have for the next six weeks. That's when a groundhog is supposed to come out of hibernation and either walk around or else become frightened by his shadow and scurry back underground. Since finding a wild groundhog in February is not easy (they usually come out of hibernation in March), my mother told me long ago that we can just assume that if February 2 is sunny, he will see his shadow, and if that date is cloudy, the groundhogs will stay out. However, to celebrate the holiday, we have groundhogs in all parts of the country that are kept in captivity just for this forecast.

Groundhogs have no real expertise in weather forecasting, but some happen to be better than others. The folks at NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) decided to rate them. They selected for the ranking 17 prominent groundhogs that have been predicting weather for at least twenty years, although we don't have to take that seriously; we know groundhogs are replaceable, and besides, three of the contenders have been given the taxidermy treatment and are still making predictions. Also in the running was a weather-forecasting tortoise and one statue that is purported to predict weather. They were studied and ranked for their accuracy between the years 2005 and 2024. You can find information about these groundhogs linked in this database. Who is the top weather-predicting groundhog? It isn't Punxsutawney Phil, who was featured in the movie. In fact, Phil came in close to the bottom. Nor was it the statue, which did rather well, considering. See the results of this study at NOAA. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Cephas)


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