The groundhog wars cast weather shadow
Phil's forecast disputed by distant relatives.
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PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. - Punxsutawney Phil told people Thursday to prepare for six more weeks of winter, making him the minority opinion among weather-prognosticating groundhogs, most of whom seem to think that spring is coming early.
But with such a mild and relatively snowless winter so far, who could tell?
Phil's prediction came as he emerged from his lair to see his shadow on Gobbler's Knob, a tiny hill in this town about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Yet groundhogs in at least four other states - West Virginia's French Creek Freddie, Georgia's Gen. Beauregard Lee, Ohio's Buckeye Chuck, and New York's Staten Island Chuck - did not see their shadows.
Phil's prediction is determined in advance for him by the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's Inner Circle, whose members don top hats and tuxedos for the day.
Gov. Corbett was among the spectators this year.
"What started as a small gathering in 1887," Corbett said, "has now evolved into tens of thousands of visitors from around the nation and even the world coming to Punxsutawney to participate in this time-honored Groundhog Day tradition."
That tradition attained a large following with the 1993 Bill Murray comedy Groundhog Day. Before the movie came out, Phil was lucky to have an audience of 2,500, said Mike Johnston, vice president of the Inner Circle. Recent crowds have been four or five times that.
And while the group has records of Phil's predictions dating back to 1886, it doesn't have a tally of whether Phil was right.
Johnston said the reason was simple: "He's never been wrong."
Phil is "incapable of error," he said, because the groundhog is not site-specific.
If Phil predicts six more weeks of winter, said Johnston, "I guarantee you, someone's going to have six more weeks of winter."