Obvious fake press shot of Phil shadow checking

As an update to our recent post on Groundhog Day, one of the leading groundhogs, Punxsutawney Phil, predicted there would be an early spring this year.

Punxsutawney Phil, a national groundhog forecasting figure, is often pictured in the papers and the news as coming out of his groundhog hole, looking around and seeing if he sees his shadow, which is one of his key data points (his only one, come to think of it) that he uses for his professional spring forecast.

This is actually all a bunch of phony news media hype stuff.  The weather was awful on Groundhog Day this year and no intelligent groundhog, especially one of Phil’s stature, is going to come out in such miserable weather.  Just look at the obviously faked, poor quality press photo above and you’ll know what I mean.

No, the modern GF’s (groundhog forecasters) are a lot smarter about the whole thing.  Hidden away in their warm groundhog home offices below ground, they just log on to the internet to see what the weather is doing before making their forecast.  I have on good authority that Phil typically checks www.weather.com and enters his groundhog hole zip code to gather the essential data he needs for his forecast.

Then he just posts his forecast on his website and pretty much calls it a day.

So that’s how it’s done these days.  Yes, the  internet has really changed everything and it’s hard to see some of the old pre-internet traditions die.  On the other hand, it looks like a favorable prediction for an early spring, so we’ll just focus on that good piece of news and worry about tradition later.

Yes, we’ll conclude by looking on the bright side, so to speak.

Here’s to an early spring in your neck of the woods – J. Daniel