Happy Groundhog Day – 5 things you may not know about the celebration

Today is Groundhog Day and while many of us associate it with Bill Murray and the iconic film, it does produce the most famous forecaster in the world.

By Declan Whooley

In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, this morning the most watched groundhog in the world – Punxsutawney Phil - will pop his head out of his burrow and indicate what the weather will be like for the next six weeks.

According to folklore, if it's cloudy when the groundhog emerges from its burrow Saturday, it will leave the burrow, signifying that winter will soon end. If, however, it's a sunny day, Phil will supposedly see his shadow and, frightened, retreat back into his burrow, and winter will continue for six more weeks.

Here are five things you may not have known about the Groundhog Day celebration.

1) Groundhog Day has its origins in an ancient celebration of Candlemas, a point midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, according to the climate centre. Superstition has it that fair weather was seen as a prediction of a stormy and cold second half to winter

2) Since 1988, the groundhog has been ‘right’ 10 times and ‘wrong’ 15 times. In other words, only 10 times did the national average temperature for the remainder of February match what would be expected based on what the groundhog had predicted.

3) Since 1887, the groundhog has seen his shadow 100 times, and not seen it 16 times to predict an early spring. There is no record of the prediction for nine times in the late 19th century.

4) Although Phil is the most famous hog of them all, other prognosticating groundhogs include West Virginia's French Creek Freddie, Georgia's Gen. Beauregard Lee, Ohio's Buckeye Chuck, North Carolina's Sir Wally Wally, Alabama's Smith Lake Jake and New York's Staten Island Chuck (full name: Charles G. Hogg).

5) In 2006 the film Groundhog Day was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

And we couldn't go without at least one clip from the film.