How Accurate is the Groundhog Anyway?

​By Lynnola Christman
Groundhog Day happened on Saturday February 2nd, 2019. At 7:25 am, Punxsutawney Phil was pulled out from his burrow and didn’t see his shadow, predicting that we will have an early spring. This is only the 19th time he didn’t see his shadow over the course of 133 years. The predictions aren’t always correct, but it would be nice to finally put the winter coats away sooner than expected.
The first official Groundhog Day was in the year 1887 according to npr.org. Groundhog Day was based off of the pagan holiday, Candlemas. Candlemas was when clergy would have candles to help determine how long and cold winter was going to be. Before the Germans came to America, they selected the hedgehog to predict the weather. When they came to America, they carried on with the tradition but switched the animal to the groundhog. The one famous groundhog is Punxsutawney Phil, but as time went on, all across North America people had their own groundhogs.
Punxsutawney Phil correctly predicted that there was going to be an early spring nearly half of the 19th early spring predictions. According to livescience.com, Punxsutawney Phil was only correct about 39% of the time. A meteorologist, named Tom Roche, said "Even if you flip a coin, you'll still be right close to half of the time that's a 50 percent accuracy rate. So you'll be better off flipping a coin than going by the groundhog's predictions."