Today in 1887, Groundhog Day was celebrated for the first time
at Gobbler’s Knob at Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. A newspaper
editor belonging to a group of groundhog hunters from
Punxsutawney called the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club declared
that Phil, the Punxsutawney groundhog, was America’s only true
weather-forecasting groundhog. Groundhog Day has its roots in
the ancient Christian tradition of Candlemas Day, when clergy
would bless and distribute candles needed for winter. The
candles represented how long and cold the winter would be.
Germans expanded on this concept by selecting an animal–the
hedgehog–as a means of predicting weather. German settlers
continued the tradition, although they switched from hedgehogs
to groundhogs. Groundhogs, are also called woodchucks and the
scientific name is Marmota monax. According to tradition, if a
groundhog comes out of its hole on February 2nd and sees its
shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter weather; no
shadow means an early spring. In February, male ground