It's sunrise today, Saturday 2 Feb. 2013.

I knew people who would go to see the celebration and the entire town got drunk and wandered the streets drinking most of the night and definitely at sunrise. Then the GRand Order of the Highly Exalted Hoity-Toity would yank some poor unsuspected ground hog froma make believe tree stump while wearing chain-mail gloves and raise ti high over their heads.

If the sun was out, then the animal saw its shadow.

If the sky was cloudy then the animal saw its shadow thanks to the banks of Klieg Lights used for TV cameras and everyone pretended there was no shadow.

IF there was an eclipse, they slaughtered the groundhog, deep fried the carcass and ate it.

Some of that isn't scientifically true, Parts of it are just a plain old excuse to party.

I'll drink to that!

BTW - Odd facts:

Lightning has never struck the groundhog dead.

There's never been an earthquake in Punxsutawney on Groundhog Day.

One a cold, clear night in Punxsutawney in the middle of winter, if you don't drink you'll freeze your ass off. There is an official lost ass booth in the town square.

Groundhogs hate the day but they can't organize or strike because a) they have no money, and b) they lack opposable thumbs to make the picket signs.

>>ANd he saw a shadow:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/0 ... 05213.html

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. — An end to winter's bitter cold will come soon, according to Pennsylvania's famous groundhog.

Following a recent stretch of weather that's included both record warm temperatures and bitter cold, tornadoes in the South and Midwest and torrential rains in the mid-Atlantic, Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his lair Saturday in front of thousands but didn't see his shadow.

Legend has it that if the furry rodent sees his shadow on Feb. 2 on Gobbler's Knob in west-central Pennsylvania, winter will last six more weeks. But if he doesn't see his shadow, spring will come early.

The prediction is made during a ceremony overseen by a group called the Inner Circle. Members don top hats and tuxedos for the ceremony on Groundhog Day each year.

Bill Deeley, president of the Inner Circle, says that after "consulting" with Phil, he makes the call in deciphering what the world's Punxsutawney Phil has to say about the weather.

Phil is known as the "seer of seers" and "sage of sages." Organizers predicted about 20,000 people this weekend, a larger-than-normal crowd because Groundhog Day falls on a weekend this year.

"I just hope he's right and we get warmer weather soon," said Mike McKown, 45, an X-ray technician who drove up from Lynchburg, Va., with his mother.

Phil's got company in the forecasting department. There's Staten Island Chuck, in New York; General Beauregard Lee, in Atlanta; and Wiarton Willie, in Wiarton, Ontario, among others noted by the National Climactic Data Center "Groundhog Day" Web page.

"Punxsutawney can't keep something this big to itself," the Data Center said. "Other prognosticating rodents are popping up to claim a piece of the action."

Phil is the original – and the best, Punxsutawney partisans insist.

The 1993 movie "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray brought even more notoriety to the Pennsylvania party. The record attendance was about 30,000 the year after the movie's release, said Katie Donald, executive director of the Groundhog Club. About 13,000 attend if Feb. 2 falls on a weekday.

Phil's predictions, of course, are not always right on. Last year, for example, he told people to prepare for six more weeks of winter, a minority opinion among his groundhog brethren. The Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University later listed that January to June as the warmest seven-month period since systematic records began being kept in 1895.

"We'll just mark it up as a mistake last year. He'll be correct this year," McKown said hopefully.

___

Ron Todt reported from Philadelphia.

Early spring or 6 more weeks of this cold, I vote early spring. I am good to 30 and don't mind 20 or even 10 but zero, ZERO with a little wind is damn cold.

River

I heard on the news his accuracy rate is only 39%.

Paolo wrote: Sun Feb 03, 2013 5:12 pm I heard on the news his accuracy rate is only 39%.

That's better than our local weatherguesser on the 6 o'clock news.

Paolo wrote: Sun Feb 03, 2013 5:12 pm I heard on the news his accuracy rate is only 39%.

That's true. And just making blind guesses should get 50% right or wrong.

But that isn't a reason to stop a great, all-night party, even if Punxsutawney is in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania.

Dave (imported) wrote: Sun Feb 03, 2013 6:22 pm That's true. And just making blind guesses should get 50% right or wrong.

But that isn't a reason to stop a great, all-night party, even if Punxsutawney is in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania.

Drive a little farther north and you can go boating on Lake Pymatuning and make a real day of it.

In February? That place is frozen over.

In summer it's lovely country but not in winter.

My fondest memory of a groundhog comes from driving from work to Penn State Campus in McKeesport on hot August afternoon when the asphalt shimmered with 90 degree F heat. i was on traveling east on Lebanon Church Road away from the Pleasant Hills Cloverleaf and there it was in the opposite lanes, a dead groundhog with a cloud of flies hovering about the putrid and rather bloated body. A COUNTRY CADILLAC (pick with lots of chrome, light bar, oversized tires and spotting lights) aimed the front tire at that dreadful carcass. Damn, the driver couldn't just have been a dumb jerk, he was an ignorant dumb jerk. That groundhog exploded like a ripe peach and squirted gory putrescence halfway across the highway. Left a slimy smear ten feet down the road. i often wonder how bad that truck stunk with all that oozy gooey mess smeared on its undercarriage.

The second fondest memory of a groundhog was opening my mailbox (a large-sized Rural mailbox) and looking at the ass-end of a dead groundhog the neighbor kids stuffed into it. I yanked it out with a coat hanger and a few hours later saw my neighbor put it in his trashcans.

My personal Groundhog, I have one that lives in a burrow in my back yard, did not even wake up to join in the partying. She has really disappointed me. --FLO--