Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Sunday and predicted six more weeks of wintry weather, his top-hatted handlers announced to a raucus, record-sized crowd at Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania.
Phil was welcomed with chants of “Phil, Phil, Phil,” and pulled from a hatch on his tree stump shortly after sunrise before a member of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club read from a scroll in which he boasted: “Only I know — you can’t trust A.I.”
The woodchuck’s weather forecast is an annual ritual that goes back more than a century in western Pennsylvania, with far older roots in European folklore, but it took Bill Murray’s 1993 Groundhog Day movie to transform the event into what it is today, with tens of thousands of revelers at the scene and imitators scattered around the United States and beyond.
When Phil is deemed to have not seen his shadow, that is said to usher in an early spring. When he does see it, there will be six more weeks of winter.
The crowd was treated to a fireworks show, confetti and live music that ranged from the Ramones to “Pennsylvania Polka” as they awaited sunrise and Phil’s emergence. Gov. Josh Shapiro, local and state elected officials and a pair of pageant winners were among the dignitaries at the scene.
Self-employed New York gingerbread artist Jon Lovitch has attended the event for 33 years.
Phil has predicted a longer winter far more often than an early spring like he did in 2024, and one effort to track his accuracy concluded he was right less than half the time. What six more weeks of winter means is subjective.
“I like the cold, you know, and this is probably the best and biggest midwinter party in the entire world,” Lovitch said in Punxsutawney. “And it’s just a really good time.”
