{"id":41615,"date":"2024-02-02T14:47:55","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T19:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=41615"},"modified":"2024-02-02T14:48:01","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T19:48:01","slug":"punxsutawney-phil-makes-his-groundhog-day-prediction-is-an-early-spring-on-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/02\/02\/punxsutawney-phil-makes-his-groundhog-day-prediction-is-an-early-spring-on-the-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Punxsutawney Phil makes his Groundhog Day prediction. Is an early spring on the way?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Punxsutawney Phil didn\u2019t see his shadow in a ceremony Friday morning at Gobbler\u2019s Knob in Pennsylvania. Per tradition, that means he\u2019s predicting an early spring.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The annual Groundhog Day celebration in Punxsutawney, about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, originated from a German legend about a furry rodent. The gathering annually attracts thousands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before Friday’s announcement, Punxsutawney Groundhog Club President Tom Dunkel told the crowd that a cane that he held gave him the power to speak Groundhog-ese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dunkel said that Phil would tell him which of two scrolls to use to make his weather prediction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Dunkel\u2019s direction, the crowd helped fire up the groundhog with repeated chants of \u201cPhil!\u201d before a club member pulled the groundhog from a stump on the stage and held it aloft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dunkel and other club members leaned over the stump before announcing that they had a decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vice President Dan McGinley read the decision, written in verse, from the chosen scroll and announced, “Glad tidings on this Groundhog Day and early spring is on the way.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last time Phil predicted an early spring was\u00a02020<\/a>. The\u00a02021<\/a>,\u00a02022<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a02023<\/a>\u00a0forecasts\u00a0called for six more weeks of winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other groundhogs also made their predictions Friday and agreed with Punxsutawney Phil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over in New York City, a crowd erupted into cheers of “early spring!” as Staten Island Chuck, touted as the world\u2019s most accurate prognosticating groundhog, made the prediction everyone wanted to hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The furry friend has been accurate more than 80% of the time dating back to the first Groundhog Day festivities at the Staten Island Zoo in 1981, according to zoo officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I\u2019m glad that that imposter from Pennsylvania, Phil, is not here because it is less than 50% accuracy rate,” boasted Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Punxsutawney Phil didn\u2019t see his shadow in a ceremony Friday morning at Gobbler\u2019s Knob in Pennsylvania. Per tradition, that means he\u2019s predicting an early spring. The annual Groundhog Day celebration in Punxsutawney, about… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[7447],"class_list":["post-41615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-punxsutawney-phil-makes-his-groundhog-day-prediction-is-an-early-spring-on-the-way"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}