{"id":34806,"date":"2015-02-02T10:05:14","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T15:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=34806"},"modified":"2015-02-02T10:05:14","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T15:05:14","slug":"punxsutawney-phil-sees-shadow-predicts-six-more-weeks-of-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2015\/02\/punxsutawney-phil-sees-shadow-predicts-six-more-weeks-of-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Punxsutawney Phil Sees Shadow, <br>Predicts Six More Weeks Of Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/posttv\/c\/embed\/19dc76f8-aadc-11e4-8876-460b1144cbc1\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"480\" height=\"290\"><\/iframe><\/center><center><\/center><center><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Punxsutawney Phil, the world\u2019s most beloved\u00a0and furry\u00a0seasonal prognosticator,\u00a0has seen his\u00a0shadow on Monday\u00a0morning (despite overcast skies), portending six more weeks of winter.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The groundhog\u2019s predication came\u00a0around 7:25\u00a0a.m. in Punxsutawney, Pa., with overcast skies and scattered snow and rain showers moving through the region from the latest winter storm \u2014 conditions that are likely to continue\u00a0if the plucky\u00a0marmot gets his way.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Last year, Phil also saw his shadow \u2014 the final nail in the coffin for what was one of the most brutally long winters in the U.S. The unrelenting winter dragged on through March in many places in 2014. Around D.C., many locations accumulated more than 30\u00a0inches of snow last winter, and Phil chalked another one up in the \u201cverified\u201d column.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><!--more-->While no one questions Phil\u2019s dedication\u00a0to the seasonal outlook, his accuracy is an enduring\u00a0source of controversy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">In 2013, Phil issued a forecast for an\u00a0early spring, but\u00a0bitter cold and snow gripped the\u00a0eastern U.S. into March that year. \u00a0The prosecuting attorney in Butler County, Ohio went as far as to\u00a0seek the death penalty for Phil\u00a0for \u201cmisrepresentation of early spring\u201d before a Pennsylvania law firm came to Phil\u2019s defense, claiming\u00a0the Ohio attorney had no jurisdiction to prosecute the Groundhog.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This year, the forecast\u00a0suggests this winter will be remembered for its duration more than its intensity. Temperatures, so far, have been running close to or slightly above average across the Lower 48. Does Phil sense a dramatic shift to come, favoring snow-lovers and ski bunnies? Only time will tell.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Since the Groundhog\u2019s first prediction in 1887, Phil has seen his shadow 101 times and not seen it on just 17 occasions. There are nine missing years in\u00a0the record, but Phil has issued a forecast without exception.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.groundhog.org\/groundhog-day\/about-groundhog-day\/\" target=\"_blank\">Phil\u2019s official Web site<\/a>\u00a0says he has \u201cof course\u201d issued a correct forecast 100 percent of the time. But NOAA\u2019s National Climatic Data Center\u00a0says\u00a0Phil\u2019s forecasts have shown \u201cno predictive skill\u201d in recent years. AccuWeather\u00a0finds\u00a0the rodent has an 80 percent accuracy rate.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">NOAA says Groundhog Day originated as an ancient celebration of the mid-point between the winter solstice and spring equinox.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u201cSuperstition has it that fair weather [at this midpoint] was seen as forbearance of a stormy and cold second half to winter,\u201d NOAA\u00a0writes\u00a0in its summary of Groundhog Day background and folklore.<\/p>\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Punxsutawney Phil, the world\u2019s most beloved\u00a0and furry\u00a0seasonal prognosticator,\u00a0has seen his\u00a0shadow on Monday\u00a0morning (despite overcast skies), portending six more weeks of winter. The groundhog\u2019s predication came\u00a0around 7:25\u00a0a.m. in Punxsutawney, Pa., with&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34806"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}