Talk:Groundhog Day/Archive 1

2008 update
According to this website: http://www.punxsutawneyphil.com/ the forecast for 2008 for phil is incorrect in the table at the moment...

This article needs work
I am the person who most recently edited the Hedgehog Day article. This article needs editing too, but it will require actually going to a library, looking up sources, and being critical about them. It strikes me as unsafe to refer to spatially and temporally remote European sources for the origins of Groundhog Day if a clear line of influences cannot be cited. Let me suggest something. "Groundhog Day" as we know it is largely a result of the attempts of New York City (or however it's spelled), Pennsylvania, to market itself. The locals elevated what was a local ground squirrel hunt and banquet into a major event. I rather doubt that there is now any clarity where they got their ideas from, and, without the evidence of some historical document to tell us what was on the founders' minds, remoter origins than the civic boosterism of a late 19th century New Jersey town are lost forever (although that storekeeper's 1841 diary entry was interesting.) Metrodorus (talk)

Historical quote cites a future publication: Someone in 1841 is citing a book from 1974. My guess is that either a) there is a missing close quote after 'moderate' and open quote after '1974', or b) someone added the 'published in 1974' without realizing it was in the middle of a quote, or c) there is a typo in 1974, which should read 1774, 974, etc. I'm striking the second half of the quote, if someone can resolve this they can restore it.
 * The reference was made Feb. 4, 1841 in Morgantown, Berks County (Pennsylvania) storekeeper James Morris' diary..."Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks crap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate. According to the Works of Carmi (published in 1974) the groundhog is psychologically shaken when it sees its shadow, its lack of shadow is a blanket of security and when a groundhog sees it- he is determined to hide for 6 weeks"

I'm not too sure about the Scottishness of the couplet. Mainly because it's not written in Scots as I would expect this type of folk weather prophecy to be. Rather than saying...


 * If Candlemas Day is bright and clear,
 * there'll be two winters in the year.

... a genuine Scottish couplet would say something more like...


 * Gin Candlemas be bricht and clear,
 * ye'll see twa winters in ae year.

It seems more likely to me that it's English but perhaps others know different -- Derek Ross


 * This article was from a US POV. Before I rewrote the intro (badly, I admit) it leaped in with "Groundhog day has its origins in .." without actually saying what Groundhog day actually is. sigh... -- Tarquin


 * I created a stub for Groundhog. I started all this mess because I liked the movie. I suspect the couplet was translated into English on the web site where I found the reference. Thanks for helping clean it up. ;-> --Jeff

Hedgehog Day
I added a comment about Hedgehog Day. The article claimed that Groundhog Day came from Candlemas. That is very odd since Candlemas has little to do with predicting the remaining length of winter. It merely falls on the same date. Hedgehog Day began in ancient Rome, falling on Februa 2 (February 2), and entailed checking to see if a hedgehog saw its shadow when it emerged from its den. If so, there will be 6 more weeks of winter. It became Groundhog Day in the Americas because there were no hedgehogs to check on. I feel that it may be best to emphasize Hedgehog Day and note that Candlemas is merely a coincedental holiday. Kainaw 20:16, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

After reading the wikipedia article on Hedgehog Day and the lengthy discussion page, it seems to me that we should refer to the fact that Hedgehog Day may be an urban myth. I have a fair amount of primary source material available about Roman holidays and I have never seen a reference to Hedgehog Day. I am not suggesting that we remove all mention of it, but until there is a good citation for it, we should mention that it may be fabricated. Moreover, without citations the whole first paragraph of the "History" section seems rather suspect. --Taranah 23:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Edit Links section
I don't think that we need to have all of the external links that we have at the bottom. It would be great if someone would go through and evaluate all of the links for usefulness of necessity to be linked. I would also like to see a link to the Groundhog Day Birthday Club website. For example, I doubt that the article on Groundhog day and Gardening is something we need to include. I mean, this is an encyclopedia, afterall, and not a random posting board of anything relevant we find.

Revised article
I have revised this article, just sectioning it out really, and deleting some links. Hopefully it looks more streamlined and less congested. I also added a picture of a groundhog, I hope to be able to get permission to put up a picture of Punxsutawny Phil. If there's any problems with these edits please let me know. --ImmortalGoddezz 21:02, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you guys think that it is important to list the recent predictions? After about a month, the prediction is useless. For instance, do you remember if last winter was long or short? Probably not, so the prediction has no importance after the fact. --''' ?6? ? ?89 ''' 01:04, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It might not be vitally important, but I think for many it is an interesting thing to read about. -ImmortalGoddezz 02:12, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with ImmortalGoddezz Johntex\talk 02:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Some people may remember "hey, it's Groundhog Day" and go to this wiki article, not knowing what Phil predicted. It would be good to have it, at least for the next six weeks of winter that we are supposed to be getting.  Ha.  We havn't even had any snow here in Philly since mid-December.--TexasDex 06:50, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Unreferenced conjecture about origins
The closing paragraph which offers a explanation the motivation for folk tradition as simply a joke has many problems:

"In western countries in the Northern Hemisphere the official first day of Spring is about six weeks after Groundhog Day, on March 20 or 21. About 1,000 years ago, before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar when the date of the equinox drifted in the Julian calendar, the spring equinox fell on March 16 instead. This was exactly six weeks after February 2. Assuming that the equinox marked the first day of spring in certain medieval cultures, as it does now in western countries, Groundhog Day occurred exactly six weeks before spring. Therefore, if the groundhog saw his shadow on Groundhog Day there would be six more weeks of winter. If he didn't, there would be 42 more days of winter. In other words, the Groundhog Day/Hedgehog Day tradition may have begun as a bit of folk humor."

1. This is an Encyclopedia article, so it should not propose new theories.

2. The theory makes it a joke that 6 weeks is actually pretty close to 1/8 of a year (42 days vs. 44+) while a simplier explanation is that the farmers rule of thumb was NOT offering absolute accuracy, just wheather Winter would last all the way to the Spring Equinox or end sooner. In fact, the 6 weeks might be a late modification of tradition which original was thought of in terms of 1/8ths.

3. The discussion of when actual vs. calendrical of Equinox (earlier or March 21) requires knowing the locale of the origin of the tale and how the teller of the tale was marking Spring equinox. The discussion further hedges by offer a match date somewhere in medieval period as the calendar drifted out of the seasons. The problem is tradition got repeated in many parts of Europe, which suggests it has more value than a joke about a tautology.

I suggest throwing that whole paragraph out.

For those who don't under the idea of what is being predicted: Clear in some latitudes is associated with cold (more middle continent USA midwest or Pennsylvania than some coastal cloudy area) days and nights are not as cold.

The claimed predicitive value of the observation is that if clouds have already arrived for cool but not cold days spring is already thought to be on its way.

For example, here in Seattle in the winter of 20005-2006 the weather finally broke and the sun came out 3+ months of overcast with much rain; thus, in this area, the change in weather patterns is opposite they idea of Groundhog Day.

The note about Candlemas "When Christianity came into being, the formerly pagan observance was called "Candlemas Day."" might better be stated as "Eventually during the Christian Era, February 2nd additionally was celebrated as Candlemas, based on February being 40 days after Christmas."

Note Candlemas is in wikipedia, so can be linked from here. The distance to Easter mentioned in the article is incorrect in nearly any year and calculating Easter was a well understood idea, so we should find "40 days to Easter" idea very suspect.

Apparently the opportunity to observe animal behavior did not leave the European tradition, so suggestions the days name changed as opposed to gaining additional traditions and anmes, would need additional supporting evidence. We apparently have with continuity with old German traditions as the diary references from Pennsylvania attest.

"whiskery waddler."

What the heck?


 * Seconded on the motion to delete! It doesn't even properly explain what "six weeks" and "42 days" even properly refer to. Differences in the two calendars?


 * I would like to third that motion. Where did the "42 days" come from? Yes, it's six weeks, but 42 days does not equal "an early spring," which is what the groundhog not seeing it's shadow is supposed to mean. In fact, I'm doing more than thirding the motion, I'm deleting the offending paragraph. &mdash; Sam 63.138.152.238 (talk) 17:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

No doubt, the ignorant and misguided Wiki-Police will remove my entry. So I'll post it here too:

Groundhog Day is actually a carefully crafted allegory to convey some truths of what happened during the Dark Ages into present day. So it would go undetected and prevent it being destroyed by christians, much like christians almost completely obliterated the true meaning of Yule, and completely wiped out the holiday of Eostre (inventing their Easter on top of it).

I always wondered how you could get six MORE weeks of winter, if winter didn't end until Spring Equinox (March 21) no matter what the Groundhog did and it represented. Then the answer dawned on me one day. According to the old Pagan calendars, there are also 4 "Cross Quarter" days. Halfway between each Solstice and Equinox. Feb. 2nd is one of those days. Winter USED TO end on, and Spring start on, Feb. 2nd. All the seasons used to start and end on these "Cross Quarter" days. The "Groundhog Day" allegory is all about how, if the Pagans (groundhogs, earth-worshipers) were too afraid of their shadows (past) and hid; did nothing to prevent the destruction of all their European cultures, ancestors, and neighbors (all the human sacrifice that was done by christians); then we would have to live by the christian calendar, which would give us 6 more weeks of Winter ever after.

See how it all makes sense when you actually think things through? :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.251.115.80 (talk) 19:59, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Prognosticating groundhogs list
In an effort to keep this section clear and free of the (dozen or more) groundhogs that was initially on this list, please refrain from adding any groundhog that does not have his or her own wikipedia page. There is a link to other prognosticating groundhogs for this very reason, to keep the section clear of a dozen red links and over all uncluttered appearance of the page. Thanks. --ImmortalGoddezz 19:26, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Don't leave one out!
I don't know if y'all are familiar with General Beauregaurd Lee, but he is very much the South's resident groundhog. Though recently retired, his predictions are very much adhered to here in Georgia and there should be a profile on him!

Predictive power?
If the predictions of various groundhogs are included in this article, the outcomes should also be included. I am wondering how one actually knows how to determine whether winter has been extended or not? Timdownie 19:30, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Famous prognosticating groundhogs
vandalized. section has "die" at the end. I'm new to Wikipedia... not sure how to revert that. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.232.46.80 (talk) 07:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC).


 * Just edit the page and remove the word. I have already done that by the way...  The other option would be to go back through the history and find the non-vandalized version and click 'edit this page' and then save that as the current revision.  Please see the help section on 'Vandalism for further details. --Pchov 11:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

'''

Adelaide, Australia
Does anyone know where the information that Groundhog Day is celebrated in Adelaide, South Australia is sourced from? I lived in Adelaide until recently and can't ever recall a groundhog day celebration. A quick google search didn't shed any light on the matter.


 * I'd second that. I've lived in Adelaide for the last ten years and I've never heard of it.  Is this a Victorian joke? GoldenRing 00:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed, having lived in Adelaide for 25 years, I've never once heard anything about people celebrating it here. Suggest deletion. Orpheus82 00:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I concur, I've lived in South Australia for 25 years (near & in Adelaide), we don't celebrate Groundhog day! Firstly, there are no Groundhog's in the country, and the festival in the US is a regional one. You'd think that we'd adopt July the 4th as Independance Day first before Groundhog Day (and no for the gullible - we don't celebrate Independance Day in Australia!!) ~b3, Adelaide 2 Feb 2007 01:12 (UTC)~


 * Because you three people don't celebrate this holiday you think it should be deleted from an encyclopedia? What kind of sense does that make?  I don't believe in Buddha and I'm sure I can find two other people who don't either.  Should we delete buddhism now?  Make your arguments logical before posting. ~Greg, California, U.S.A. 2 Feb 2007 12:05 pm pst~ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.200.11.204 (talk) 20:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC).


 * All that was being suggested was that the fact that the holiday is celebrated in Adelaide, Australia be deleted, because it is false. I believe that the title of this discussion (being "Adelaide, Australia") made this clear, and the intent of the discussion was clearly understood by all other contributers to this conversation. The erroneous information has been deleted as suggested, leaving the rest of the article intact. There was never any suggestion to remove the entire article. Orpheus82 01:12, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Indeed. I was going to do this exact edit the other week but got distracted by work.  1) The entry suggests this is a winter celebration and in Australia, February is a summer month.  2) If the holiday is celebrated by South Australia (which I strongly doubt), it's very low key.  Surely there would be media coverage if this was the case but it seems the only mention Ground Hog Day gets in South Australia is in reference to the movie of the same name. If someone finds that the State does celebrate the holiday and decides to add this information to the entry againm, it'd be great if you could supply come references. grudknows 00:49, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Germany and Portugal
"Groundhog day is also celebrated in Portchagal and Germany where everyone under the age of 30 dresses up as groundhogs and light fireworks in celebration of the event."

Can anyone back this up? I live in Germany and nobody I know here has even heard of Groundhog Day, much less considered dressing up as one... Can't comment on Portugal, but both the Portuguese and German articles list Groundhog Day as a US and Canadian celebration.

Groundhog Day promotion
should the links at the end be linked as {groundhog day promotion} instead of {groundhog day} as one would expect those links to go to something about groundhog day or this article and instead shows the promotion (therefore, the word promotion should also be linked)

Maybe I'm just being weird. gujamin 14:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Add groundhogs
The page is locked. Please add Woodstock Willie, early spring. Publiapadena 17:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Publiapadena (talk • contribs) 17:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC).

In fiction / popular culture
The reference about Stargate-SG1 doesn't belong on this page. If anywhere, it belongs on the page about the movie by the same name. In addition, Stargate-SG1 was not the only tv show to parody/rip-off the movie. Off the top of my head, Xena: Warrior Princess and Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda also did episodes like this. I don't feel like researching the details on this for a proper entry though. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.126.186.23 (talk) 03:45, 24 February 2007 (UTC).
 * It's worth noting that the movie itself (and I realize we are way off topic for this page now) was not the first place the do-over-until-we-get-it-right idea was employed. David Ives's short play "All in the Timing" got there before the movie, and it may not be the first place either. -Kenllama 17:07, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I think similarly this section doesn't belong: As, like the SG-1 reference, likens to the premise of the 1993 movie, and not Groundhog day itself. --Ethanium (talk) 12:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
 * American TV Series Supernatural, Season 4, Episode 11 titled 'Mystery Spot', Sam and Dean are stuck in a time loop that replays Sam's life on a particular Tuesday, and watches Dean die every day of that Tuesday. Dean refers to Sam's explanation of his theoretical time loop "like Groundhog Day" to which Sam agrees.

The rock band Primus' song "Groundhog's Day" describes an experience of Groundhog's Day from the perspective of the groundhog.

Cleanup history section
There is a lot of bad and uninteresting informatin here but the section doesn't seem well organized. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rsduhamel (talk • contribs) 16:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC).


 * I removed the irrelevant, unsourced, seeming nonsense about Middlesbrough. Please state sources if reinstating.--Shantavira|feed me 10:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Random chance odds
Currently the article states "Random chance at a correct guess would be about 33%." Shouldn't correct odds be 50%-50% since there are only two choices? Jon 13:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Nope. While a random chance may have two outcomes, that does not imply that they are equally weighted. 192.153.157.249 (talk) 12:09, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Clean up first paragraph
I see a number of problems with the first paragraph. First off, I would remove the word "traditional" from the first sentence unless it can be proven that the holiday is "traditional" in a folkloric sense. That is, it arose from spontaneous folk rituals. I don't see any evidence here that that is the case.

The rest of paragraph reads:


 * It was originally a mid-quarter day, midway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox. However, before the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar, precession caused the cross-quarter day to drift to a later date. Groundhog day now falls four days before the cross-quarter day.

This should be removed or seriously revised. There are no sources for it. Moreover, Groundhog Day did not exist before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar (the New World had barely been reached by Columbus whe the Gregorian calendar was adopted). Therefore it could not have been a mid-quarter day then. The author probably means that Feb. 2 is a midquarter day. I will grant the point that perhaps Feb. 2 is a significant date because it was, in traditional calendars, a mid-quarter day. However, none of this is sourced.

A related fact is that Feb. 2 is Candlemas Day, which was a very marked occasion in the Western Christian liturgical year. Even so, there is no proven relation between this fact and the existence of Groundhog Day. Perhaps a connection can be suggested. But it would be rash to claim one for a fact without any sort of documentation. Metrodorus (talk)

I am deleting the sentence claiming a link between Groundhog's Day and the celebration of Candlemas. The only relationship the two has is the date. If someone can offer an actual connection between the two, then let's add it back. Pelagiushater (talk) 21:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I have now altered the first paragraph to state the basic undisputed facts about the Groundhog Day. Next I will be begin to rework the history part to tone down the wild speculation. The fact that Groundhog Day is on Candlemas, which has Christian and possible pagan elements in it will be emphasized. Wild speculation about European antecedents will be downplayed. Metrodorus

Groundhog Day 2009
Tomorrow will be groundhog day 2009. There should be some edits tomorrow when the reports come in on the groundhogs if he/she sees his/her shadow or not. RYAN 3000 (talk) 02:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yikes, and rampant vandalism. Thank goodness it's not a week long holiday, eh?  Alphageekpa (talk) 15:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Vandalism? This article should be semi-protected against vandalism. RYAN 3000 (talk) 18:02, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Requested it a few hours ago, been in place for a while. It appears to have helped. Alphageekpa (talk) 01:07, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Famous groundhogs section
Can we get some sources for this section? Unless the meaning of 'famous' has recently been changed, I don't believe all of the rodents in this list would qualify. --Onorem?Dil 15:03, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I've started a major rewrite of just about this entire article, and most of this list is on the chopping block.  I merely broke it out into its own section yesterday, when I starting cleaning up this mess of an article.  It was part of the previous table (also bloat, if you ask me), and was oddly formatted.  Just scrubbed it a little bit to make it "not so bad" for the holiday today.  I hope other editors will agree the lead-in is a tad bit improved now.  Alphageekpa (talk) 15:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Salacious Sean Janson
I did a double take on this "groundhog's" name. Oh yeah? Where is the metropolis of Salacious, anyway, and how come it is not the salacious capital of America? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.233.75.142 (talk) 18:16, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Spring arrives later in some places
Some places ONLY six more weeks of winter would be an early spring! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.0.205.213 (talk) 02:12, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Six more weeks vs. early spring
As someone commented just above, in some climates six more weeks of winter after February 2nd is indeed an early spring, or at least the normal time for spring. At, there is a quote from a meteorologist which confirms this: But Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson advised those with the winter blahs to take heart: if there was in fact only six more weeks of winter, that would amount to an early spring for most of Canada. I think this should be added to the article, but it's protected, so I can't.63.87.189.17 (talk) 21:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

What's the point of it?
Groundhogs cannot predict when winter will end, so why did Groundhog Day become popular, and why is so much time, effort etc. wasted on this pointless yearly event? If the groundhog was right about 90% of the time, there would be some sense to it. However, the real accuracy is well under 50% - tossing a coin would be more accurate, quicker and cheaper ! Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 04:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Because everyone loves a holiday? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.90.200.124 (talk) 03:45, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Groundhog Day is actually a carefully crafted allegory to convey some truths of what happened during the Dark Ages into present day. So this information would go undetected and prevent it being destroyed by christians, much like christians almost completely obliterated the true meaning of Yule, and completely wiped out the holiday of Eostre (inventing their Easter on top of it).

I always wondered how you could get six MORE weeks of winter, if winter didn't end until Spring Equinox (March 21) no matter what the Groundhog did and it represented. Then the answer dawned on me one day. According to the old Pagan calendars, there are also 4 "Cross Quarter" days. Halfway between each Solstice and Equinox. Feb. 2nd is one of those days. Winter USED TO end on, and Spring start on, Feb. 2nd. All the seasons used to start and end on these "Cross Quarter" days. The "Groundhog Day" allegory is all about how, if the Pagans (groundhogs, earth-worshipers) were too afraid of their shadows (past) and hid; did nothing to prevent the destruction of all their European cultures, ancestors, and neighbors (all the human sacrifice that was done by christians); then we would have to live by the christian calendar, which would give us 6 more weeks of Winter ever after.

See how it all makes sense when you actually think things through? :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.251.115.80 (talk) 20:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)