It's Groundhog Day!
And it's official: Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, meaning another six weeks of winter. And he wrote a little poem about it, which is pretty impressive for a marmot. (You'll have to read the poem on the official Groundhog Day site.)
Also impressive, this rodent has been around for 120 years, as the FAQ explains:
How many "Phils" have there been over the years? There has only been one Punxsutawney Phil. He has been making predictions for over 120 years! Punxsutawney Phil gets his longevity from drinking "groundhog punch," a secret recipe. Phil takes one sip every summer at the Groundhog Picnic and it magically gives him seven more years of life.
I'm thinking it would make more sense to drink the punch every 6 years instead of every year, but maybe Phil is banking on the future.
Also, he's seen his shadow in 8 of the past 10 years, and though there is no record of his prognositcal success, I'm quite certain that winters have gotten milder recently. This makes me wonder if Phil isn't playing around a bit with the definition of "winter," and the two times he didn't see his shadow were in years when spring began not on March 20th, as usual, but on Mardi Gras.
I, by the way, didn't see my shadow, as it's a perfectly normal grey Chicago morning here. This is what it looked like at sunrise:
