That's it! I'm going to "Mad Max Margin"
Punxsutawney Phil
predicts six more weeks
of winter
By Reuters, 02/02/01
PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa., -- The world renowned
weather-prognosticating groundhog called
Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Friday, which
means that winter will last another six weeks in North
America according to a time-honored custom known
as Groundhog Day.
A crowd of about 12,000
danced to polka and rock
music in the freezing
predawn cold of rural
western Pennsylvania,
while awaiting the 115th
annual spring forecast to
be made by a
woodchuck from
Gobbler's Knob near the
town of Punxsutawney.
Groundhog Day
organizers said this year
marked the 101st time
the ceremonial
groundhog has seen his
shadow.
"Phil has had an
unusually thick coat this
winter," noted Bill
Deeley, a local funeral
home director who dons a top hat and tuxedo to haul
Phil from beneath a maple tree stump shortly before
7:30 EST each Feb. 2.
According to a custom brought to the New World by
German immigrants, winter will continue for another
month and a half if the groundhog sees his shadow
during the old winter festival known as Candlemas
Day. No shadow means an early spring.
The Germans originally used hedgehogs as their
seasonal barometers.
Groundhog Day has been observed since 1887 at
Gobbler's Knob near Punxsutawney, about 90 miles
northeast of Pittsburgh that promotes itself "the
Weather Capital of the World."
Business leaders inaugurated the annual event as a
way to publicize their isolated town of 6,800 people,
which sponsors a full day of parades, ice-carving
competitions, sleigh rides, and food and music
festivals.
In recent years, however, the custom has become a
world phenomenon attracting media coverage from
as far away as Europe and Asia, thanks mainly to
the popularity of the 1993 Hollywood movie
"Groundhog Day," starring Bill Murray.
Phil, a woodchuck that has been feted by luminaries
from former President Ronald Reagan to television
talk show host Oprah Winfrey, weighs 15 pounds
and measures is 22 inches .
He owes his prognosticating powers to an alchemy
of victuals that are alien to the average rodent's diet.
"He's naturally a vegetarian. But he loves ice cream
and strawberry sundaes," Deeley explained. |
