Punxsutawney Phil, the famed groundhog forecaster, has been celebrated for his ability to predict the length of winter since 1887. Despite his storied tradition and popularity, recent evaluations by the NOAA reveal that his predictions are only accurate 35% of the time, placing him among the least reliable of rodent forecasters. Staten Island Chuck, a competing groundhog, boasts a much higher accuracy of 85%. The origins of this tradition trace back to Pennsylvania Dutch customs linking shadow sightings to winter duration.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has concluded that only 35% of Phil's forecasts have proved to be accurate, placing him at a lowly 17th compared with other rodent forecasters.
The tradition of using a large rodent to predict the seasons dates back to the Pennsylvania Dutch belief that if a groundhog left its burrow and saw its shadow, winter would go on for six more weeks.
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