Marmot day: Punxsutawney Phil sees the shadow, predicting longer winter | US News

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on Sunday and predicted six weeks of winter time, his high level masters announced a record in record size of the Gobbler button in Pennsylvania.

Phil was welcomed with songs of “Phil, Phil, Phil, taken from a hatch on his tree strain shortly after sunrise before a member of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club Parchment in which he boasted: “Only I know – you can ‘don’t trust AI. “”

Woodchuck’s weather forecast is an annual ritual that dates back more than a century in the west of Pennsylvania, with much older roots in European folklore, but it took Bill Murray Foundhog Day to transform the ‘Event in that it is today, with tens of thousands of thousands of revelers on the scene and imitators dispersed in the United States and beyond.

When Phil is considered to have seen his shadow, it inaugurates a beginning of spring. When he sees it, there will be six weeks more winter.

The crowd was entitled to a show of fireworks, confetti and live music that went from raones to the Polka of Pennsylvania as they were waiting for sunrise and the emergence of Phil. Governor Josh Shapiro, local elected officials and states and a pair of competition winners were among the scene dignitaries.

Phil predicted a longer winter much more often than early spring, and an effort to follow his precision concluded that he was right for less than half of the time. What more winter weeks are subjective.

Tom Dunkel, president of PunxSutawney Groundhog Club, says that there are two types of people who hike the Gobbler button: the faithful who seek to validate their beliefs and skeptics who want to confirm their skepticism.

Phil communicated his forecasts to Dunkel through “Groundhog-Ese” with the help of a special cane of which Dunkel inherited as the club leader. It is not as if he said in English words.

“He will like to wink, he will purr, he will chat, he goes – you know – sodium,” said Dunkel.

Attendance is free, but it cost $ 5 to take a bus and avoid a 1 mile trek (1.6 km) from the middle of the city to the scene where the prediction was made, about 80 miles ( 123 km) northeast of Pittsburgh.

Keith Post, his wife and a friend watched the film Groundhog Day in each of the last five years and decided that it was the time to make the trip of Ohio to attend the event.

“We have booked rooms almost a year in advance and we are here,” said post. “We do it.”

A new reception center opened its doors four years ago and the club is working on a second living space developed for Phil and his family so that they can divide the Gobbler button and the longtime house of Phil at the city library. The club has also set up large video screens and more powerful speakers this year to help participants in the back of the crowd to follow the procedure.

Phil has a woman, Punxsutawney Phyllis, and two puppies born this spring, Shadow and Sunny, although his family did not join her on stage for the big event. The Marmot family eats fruits and vegetables, gets daily dereume visits and sees a veterinarian at least once a year.

The club’s tradition is that Phil is the same kit that has expressed weather forecasts since the last century, thanks to an “elixir of life” which keeps him immortal.

“There is only one Phil, and it is not something that can be transmitted,” said Dunkel. “Like Santa Claus and Easter rabbit, there is only one.”