How accurate is Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day? Here’s how he stacks up to weather-predicting animals.

NOAA ranked America’s fellow furry prognosticators in accuracy. The results may surprise you.

Top-hatted and bearded Groundhog Club handler A.J. Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog.
Groundhog Club handler A.J. Dereume with Punxsutawney Phil at Gobbler's Knob. (Barry Reeger/AP)

In the cold early hours of Sunday, Feb. 2, the “Seer of Seers” emerged from his cozy burrow in Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., and proclaimed there will be six more weeks of winter weather. That prognosticator is none other than Punxsutawney Phil — one of America’s most beloved furry marmots.

It works like this: If the sun is shining and Phil the groundhog does see his shadow, he takes that as “an omen of six more weeks of bad weather and returns to his hole,” according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.

If it’s cloudy and Phil doesn’t see his shadow, he will stay above ground, signifying there will be an early spring.

So on Sunday, when Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, he predicted six more weeks of winter weather.

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While top-hatted clad members of Phil’s “inner circle” maintain that his predictions are always accurate, weather experts say the success rate of the “weather prophet extraordinaire” who has been predicting since 1887, isn’t always accurate, according to the Farmers’ Almanac.

While Phil is arguably the most well-known weather-predicting critter, he isn’t the only one. Across the U.S. fellow groundhogs — living and taxidermied — plus a prairie dog statue, duck, alligator and turtle have joined in the fun tradition.

This year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ranked the accuracy of 19 of these critters based on the following criteria: They must have been prognosticating for at least 20 years and must have been active as of Feb. 2, 2024.

Here are the results … drum roll, please:

You may be surprised to find that Punxsutawney Phil landed at No. 17 out of 19 on the list, with 35% accuracy. Meanwhile, Staten Island Chuck, who lives in New York’s Staten Island Zoo, won the top spot, with 85% accuracy. The runner-up was General Beauregard Lee from Georgia, with 80% accuracy.

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Lander Lil, which is a statue of a prairie dog that resides on the grounds of the local post office in Lander, Wy., also made the list, with 75% accuracy.

Rounding out the bottom of the list at No. 19 was Mojave Max, a tortoise in Nevada, with 25% accuracy.

Feb. 2 marks the midway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox. The origins of Groundhog Day, marked every year on that same date, are connected to the ancient Pagan festival of Imbolc, which celebrates this midway point and the change of seasons.

Groundhog Day is also rooted in an ancient European Christian celebration known as Candlemas Day (Feb. 2), which happens halfway through winter and spring. It commemorates the presentation of Jesus at the Temple of Jerusalem as a light to the people of Israel. Christians traditionally take their candles to church to be blessed and used for the rest of the year.

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The weather on Candlemas Day was also observed in order to predict the start of spring. According to an old English song:

If Candlemas be fair and bright,

Winter has another flight.

If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,

Winter will not come again.

This is why, according to tradition, if it’s a bright and sunny day and the groundhog sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. If it’s a cloudy day and the groundhog doesn’t see his shadow, there will be an early spring.

In ancient European weather lore, people would also observe hibernating animals, like a bear or badger, to foretell the arrival of spring, according to the National Weather Service.

When German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania in the 1700s, they also brought their Candlemas traditions and used animals to predict the weather. With no badgers to be found in Pennsylvania, they used groundhogs native to the area to do the prognosticating.

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In 1886, a local Punxsutawney newspaper editor, Clymer Freas, was also part of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, which started as a groundhog hunting club. Freas is credited with starting the holiday on Feb. 2, 1886, after he wrote an article in the Punxsutawney Spirit that claimed the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil could predict the weather. Phil’s fame began to spread as other newspapers around the world started to report on his weather predictions.

The first official trek to Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney happened the very next year on Feb. 2, 1887, where the groundhog saw his shadow. Phil’s weather predictions have exploded in popularity, especially after the 1993 film Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray. Now thousands of people gather every year at Gobbler’s Knob to witness what the “Seer of Seers” has to proclaim.