Don’t like Phil’s forecast? Check out these rodents instead

Groundhog Club handler A.J. Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 137th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023. Phil’s handlers said that the groundhog has forecast six more weeks of winter. (AP Photo/Barry Reeger)

He gets most of the PR, at least nationally, but Punxsutawney Phil isn’t the only groundhog to purport to predict the weather. Not hardly. From Staten Island Chuck in New York City to Jimmy the Groundhog in Wisconsin, there are a lot of them. And their predictions, which of course is a generous term, can be all over the map just as they are. And please do remember Charlotte, a groundhog who died in 2014 a week after the New York City mayor dropped her during festivities.


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