Welcome to an early spring.
If you put your beliefs in the meteorological knowledge of a woodchuck in western Pennsylvania, that is.
Punxsutawney Phil, the granddaddy of all weather-predicting whistlepigs, allegedly failed to see his shadow Friday morning when he was yanked from his warm burrow at Gobbler’s Knob during the annual Groundhog Day festivities.
Phil’s handlers, more than a dozen men in top hats, walked onto the stage northeast of Pittsburgh and “spoke” to the land beaver on a cold, overcast morning.
They then proudly announced to the large gathering, made even famous in the 1993 Groundhog Day movie (spoiler alert: the town used in filming the movie was Woodstock, Ill.), that Phil had not seen his shadow and that winter was largely over.
Punxsutawney Phil got some bipartisan support just a few minutes later when Buckeye Chuck, Ohio’s own official weather land beaver, echoed the same prediction — early spring.
With back-to-back marmot prognostications, it seems clear — no one really knows.
The fact is that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2023 compared Punxsutawney Phil’s forecast to the national weather over the past decade and found the groundhog has been right around 40 percent of the time.
The Stormfax Weather Almanac did an analysis dating back to his first prediction in 1887 and found Phil has been right just 39 percent of the time.
So your guess of the weather in the next several weeks is likely as good as any chuck.
The National Weather Service office in Cleveland, which portends to be far more scientific than a groundhog, doesn’t make predictions on Feb. 2 if winter is over.
But here is the NWS look at north central Ohio weather for the next several days. Note, there are no winter storms in the immediate forecast.
Maybe this Pennsylvania varmint is onto something.
Today
Cloudy, with a high near 36. North wind 10 to 13 mph.
Tonight
Mostly cloudy, with a low around 26. North wind 7 to 9 mph.
Saturday
Partly sunny, then gradually becoming sunny, with a high near 42. East wind 5 to 7 mph.
Saturday Night
Mostly clear, with a low around 26. East wind around 7 mph.
Sunday
Sunny, with a high near 47. East wind 6 to 8 mph.
Sunday Night
Mostly clear, with a low around 27.
Monday
Sunny, with a high near 42.
Monday Night
Mostly clear, with a low around 26.
Tuesday
Sunny, with a high near 42.
Tuesday Night
Partly cloudy, with a low around 26.
Wednesday
Mostly sunny, with a high near 46.
Wednesday Night
Mostly cloudy, with a low around 32.
Thursday
Mostly cloudy, with a high near 50.
