“Groundhog Day is a lot like a rock concert but the people are better behaved and there’s a groundhog involved.”
So says Tom Chapin, editor of the Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper, with one of the better groundhog quotes of the century thus far.
Mr. Chapin is talking, of course, about Groundhog Day at Gobbler’s Knob, where the legendary Punxsutawney Phil makes his prediction on Tuesday morning.
Rock star or no, Phil gets called out by the National Geographic in a new article:
While Phil’s proponents maintain that his predictions are 100 percent accurate, the U.S. National Climatic Data Center has estimated that Phil is only correct about 40 percent of the time.
The NCDC reached their conclusion by taking Phil’s predictions and comparing them with average temperatures in February and March. In many years when Phil predicted six more weeks of winter weather, February and March turned out to be warmer than average.
Oof! Well, plenty of rock stars can’t sing so well, either. It’s all about image.
National Geographic also claims Phil is not immortal, which only adds insult to injury and just plain isn’t polite. Let’s let the poor groundhog work his grift and then go back to his bed.
Groundhog.org has more about Phil’s annual predictions.