Groundhog Day Hails Coming Of Spring

Yesterday, February 2, was Groundhog Day. All around the country, hibernating rodents were pulled from their burrows, held up before crowds of spectators and proclaimed to be the prognosticators of the weather for the next six weeks. How the groundhogs may have felt about this we are not certain, but as far as we can tell, all the humans involved had a good time.

The Groundhog Day custom has its roots in the 16th century when German farmers first observed that badgers sometimes emerged from their burrows (known as badger sets), saw or did not see their shadows and thought they discerned a pattern in the meteorological conditions that followed. If the day was sunny and the badger saw his shadow and was frightened back into hibernation, the farmers should not plant crops, as another six weeks of winter weather would follow.

The Swiss Anabaptists known in this country as Pennsylvania Dutch in the 19th century brought the custom with them. They settled in an area of Pennsylvania that held no badgers in its wildlife roster, but was home to many groundhogs. The immigrants substituted groundhogs for badgers and a tradition was born. In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where the first Pennsylvania Dutch immigrants settled, crowds numbering as many as 40,000 people have gathered to celebrate the holiday since 1886. Whether the groundhog, known as Punxsutawney Phil, sees his shadow or not evokes reactions ranging from rejoicing to resigned acceptance.

In actuality, the groundhog is no great shakes as a weather forecaster. According to some studies, over a 60-year span, groundhogs predicted the weather for the six-week period following February 2 correctly a mere 28 percent of the time. (In fairness, this is a record no worse than that of the average human weather forecaster.) Groundhogs, like their mammalian counterparts, badgers, emerge from their burrows in search of a mate and a meal. If the edges of these two appetites have been dulled by winter torpor, the groundhog will retreat to his burrow for another six weeks of hibernation. Whether they see their shadows or not has nothing to do with and no effect on winter meteorological conditions.

Why, then, do we make such a fuss over Groundhog Day? The answer lies in humankind’s quest for certainty in an uncertain world. “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it,” Mark Twain is quoted as saying. Precisely because we cannot do anything about it, except put up an umbrella when it is raining and wear our mittens when it is cold, we talk about weather and we invent celebratory rituals like Groundhog Day. There is no harm in this custom. Certainly, a celebration of some sort in what at this latitude is the depths of winter if it does nothing else brightens our day and reassures us that spring will eventually come once again. Anything that elevates the human spirit, even if only a little, and even for only one day, is just fine by us.