{"id":62078,"date":"2026-02-02T16:58:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T21:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=62078"},"modified":"2026-02-02T16:58:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T21:58:41","slug":"what-did-the-groundhog-see-punxsutawney-phils-winter-prediction-is-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/02\/02\/what-did-the-groundhog-see-punxsutawney-phils-winter-prediction-is-in\/","title":{"rendered":"What did the groundhog see? Punxsutawney Phil\u2019s winter prediction is in"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog weather icon, saw his shadow when he was plucked from his warm burrow and thrust out into the frigid air on Monday morning. According to Phil, that means six more weeks of winter are ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every year on February 2 \u2014 Groundhog Day \u2014 rodents around the United States<\/a> take a stab at long-range weather forecasting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phil is the most famous prognosticator of the bunch and lives in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Legend has it that\u00a0if he sees his shadow, six more weeks of winter are on the way. If he doesn\u2019t, an early spring arrives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, astronomical winter will end on the spring equinox, known also as the vernal equinox, on March 20 at 10:46 a.m. ET, regardless of Monday\u2019s prediction. But weather conditions don\u2019t always follow the timetable \u2014 and neither does Phil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phil has been forecasting the weather since the late 1800s \u2014 the story goes that there\u2019s always been one Phil. We\u2019ll let you do the math.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite allegedly being the world\u2019s most seasoned forecaster, Phil\u2019s recent predictions would have a better track record if he just flipped a coin: He has only been right about 35%<\/a> of the time in the past two decades, according to data analyzed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phil\u2019s call for six more weeks of winter last year fell flat. Temperatures in February 2025 ended up near-normal despite some bouts of bitter cold, but March was the sixth-warmest on record for the country, according to NOAA data<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are more consistent experts to turn to when Phil falters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meteorologists at the National Weather Service\u2019s Climate Prediction Center produce forecasts for temperatures and precipitation across the US on timescales ranging from one week to more than a year.Their outlook for February is a bit mixed: Colder than normal conditions are expected in much of the East. Warmer than normal conditions \u2014 an \u201cearly spring\u201d \u2014 are expected in the West and Southern Plains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But long-range forecasts are notoriously complex, even with prediction tools, and the rest of the country is a toss up, with about equal chances for above, below and near-normal temperatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winter in the US so far this year has been a tale of two seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

East of the Rockies, it\u2019s actually felt like winter, with rounds of brutal cold slamming the eastern half of the US. A handful of locations in the Great Lakes, Northeast and mid-Atlantic are experiencing one of their 10 coldest winters to date, according to NOAA data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At times, the cold has been deadly. It also fueled a historic winter storm that brought catastrophic ice to parts of the South and buried many Northern states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But winter is nowhere to be found from the Rockies to the West Coast: Nearly 150 locations \u2014 including Phoenix and Las Vegas \u2014 are having their warmest winter to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warmer winters aren\u2019t a fluke, even when punctuated with seasonably appropriate cold. Winter has become the fastest-warming season for nearly 75% of the US as temperatures rise globally in a world warming due to fossil fuel pollution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bouts of brutal cold and extreme winter storms can still happen in a warming world, but they are the exception, not the norm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that, Phil\u2019s prediction of six more weeks of winter is not a good bet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog weather icon, saw his shadow when he was plucked from his warm burrow and thrust out into the frigid air on Monday morning. According to Phil,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDJcLzUxNTMyMjYwNC53ZWJwP2ZpdD04NjAlMkM1NzAmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJXaGF0IGRpZCB0aGUgZ3JvdW5kaG9nIHNlZT8gUHVueHN1dGF3bmV5IFBoaWxcdTIwMTlzIHdpbnRlciBwcmVkaWN0aW9uIGlzIGluIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.L4IkXKcUW8Lq-VzMA418zAv1Kyo-BHJrquKvCZctDjYMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":62079,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/515322604.webp","type":"image\/webp"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[13458],"class_list":["post-62078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-what-did-the-groundhog-see-punxsutawney-phils-winter-prediction-is-in"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62078","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=62078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62080,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62078\/revisions\/62080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}