Groundhog Day 2025: Five things you didn’t know about the February tradition
Groundhog Day 2025: Five things you didn’t know about the February tradition
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The first Groundhog Day celebration dates back to 2 February, 1887. As spring approaches, the time draws near for everyone’s beloved woodchuck to predict whether there’ll be six more weeks of winter. Yes, Groundhog Day is on February 2, 2025. Since 1886, crowds as large as 40,000 have annually gathered in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, on the morning of February 2 to watch a groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil emerge from a burrow on Gobbler’s Knob. According to folklore, if the groundhog sees his shadow, then winter will endure for six more weeks. If it’s cloudy, then spring will come early that year.
In recent years, the annual festival has even been live-streamed to people as early as six in the morning, as members of the top hat-wearing Inner Circle announce the groundhog’s “forecast”. Sure, Punxsutawney Phil’s weather predictions may not be totally accurate, but what’s the harm in celebrating a small, furry woodchuck each year? In fact, Groundhog Day is an interesting tradition full of history.
Here are five facts you never knew about Groundhog Day:. After German settlers came to what is now the United States, the Pennsylvania Dutch, and other German-speaking immigrants maintained the same tradition of Groundhog Day. But with the absence of hedgehogs in their new home, woodchucks were chosen instead. The earliest known American reference to Groundhog Day was in a Morgantown shopkeeper’s journal entry dated February 4, 1841.
4) Groundhogs are also referred to as “woodchucks”, forming the basis for the tongue-twister: “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”. 5) Groundhog Day is celebrated beyond Pennsylvania. All throughout the U.S., states and local towns have their own Groundhog Day events marked by their own residing groundhog. In Milltown, New Jersey, attendees await the weather forecast from Milltown Mel. Staten Island Chuck is the name given to New York City’s official weather-forecasting woodchuck who is housed at the Staten Island Zoo.
