Early Wednesday morning, approach on the market within the small city of Punxsutawney, a portly getting older man in high hat and tails unceremoniously yanked a grumpy groundhog from his winter den and introduced it to a roaring crowd numbering within the tens of 1000’s. The person then whispered to the groundhog in a secret, shared language, what he calls “Groundhogese”…
And, for the 136th yr since 1886, Punxsutawney Phil, probably the most well-known rodent this aspect of a mouse named Mickey, may have predicted the climate. Comfortable Groundhog Day. And whereas I write this on Friday, you’ll learn it lengthy after his prediction– and whereas I don’t but know what he stated, however I’m gonna exit on a limb and say Phil tells the man he sees his shadow (even whether it is overcast) and we get six extra weeks of winter. On this snowy, icy, bitter chilly winter, he’d fully lose his credibility in any other case (just like the groundhog has any, however you already know…).
Although Phil’s batting common isn’t excessive—the Nationwide Climatic Knowledge Middle says his accuracy is simply 39%, worse than a coin flip—his forecast of six extra weeks of winter is the protected one. In 136 tries, that’s been his name greater than 100 instances.
As a naturalist, nevertheless, I really like a vacation named for an animal, and I’m tickled that the nationwide media simply might need made room among the many high tales, like Russia on the cusp of invading the Ukraine and President Biden on the cusp of nominating a Black girl for the Supreme Court docket.
And I really like that it’s primarily based in some pure historical past. Groundhogs—additionally known as woodchucks—are in truth hibernators, sleeping your entire winter away in underground burrows, their coronary heart charge plummeting from summer season’s 80 beats per minute to winter’s 5. 5 beats per minute! In February, males arouse themselves from this slumber to scout their territory, looking for the dens of potential mates. Completed scouting, they return to sleep for an additional month or so.
Pennsylvania Dutch farmers settling within the New World introduced their German custom of in search of out a hibernating animal—for them it was badgers, whereas Brits used hedgehogs—on February 2 for climate prognostications. Coming right here and seeing groundhogs roaming in February possible started the custom of Groundhog Day.
However the alternative of February 2 isn’t any accident. Those self same German settlers additionally commemorated the Christian Candlemas, the day when clergy blessed and distributed candles to fight the darkish of winter, and lighted candles had been positioned in home windows. Candlemas comes on the precise midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox, and superstition held that if the climate was truthful this present day, the second half of winter can be chilly and stormy. “If Candlemas be truthful and shiny,” stated the superstition, “winter has one other flight. If Candlemas brings clouds and rain, winter won’t come once more.”
Candlemas itself has an origin within the pagan celebration of Imbolc, one in every of 4 cross-quarter days, the midway marks of seasons. Echoes of historic cross-quarter holidays have stayed with us via the ages in Could Day, Halloween, and Groundhog Day.
At this time, we’re midway via winter, as farmers used to remind themselves by repeating the adage, “Groundhog Day, half your hay.” Tempo your self; be sure to’ve received sufficient for winter’s second half.
Appears there was a long-ago tug of warfare over which calendar would mark the seasons, one the place cross-quarter days start them, the opposite the place solstices and equinoxes do. Midsummer’s Eve, one other pre-Christian vacation captured so splendidly by Shakespeare, happens on the summer season solstice, now the start of summer season. However approach again when, the solstice was the halfway level of the season.
Parts of that historic calendar have stayed with us, embedded in our cultural DNA. When that top-hatted gentleman pulled Phil out of his burrow up there on Gobbler’s Knob, he reminded us of olden days when a totally totally different calendar dominated– and Wednesday was abruptly Imbolc, the very first day of Spring.
It doesn’t matter what Phil known as this week, let’s be sincere: he’s received higher probabilities of getting his prediction proper than the Flyers have of profitable the Stanley Cup. Paws down, sadly.
p.s. The title Punxsutawney is so evocative. I knew it needed to be a Native American title, however solely simply final week checked into it. Seems it’s a Lenape phrase that means “city of mosquitoes.” Ssh, don’t inform the Chamber of Commerce– not fairly the picture they’d wish to invoke.
Mike Weilbacher directs the Schuylkill Middle for Environmental Training in Higher Roxborough, and tweets @SCEEMike. He will be reached at mike@schuylkillcenter.org.