groundhog day used to mean something in this town
Phil only tells us a few things about Groundhog Day, the holiday. In the opening scene, he tells us the basic bits: “According to the legend, tomorrow, February 2, if the groundhog sees his shadow, we'll have six more weeks of winter.” Later, Phil also tells us—though it’s hard to judge just how serious he is—that the townspeople used to “take the hog out and they used to eat it” (more on that below). Punxsutawney Phil, the “prognosticator of prognosticators” can predict an early spring, supposedly. However, the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tells us that Punxsutawney Phil is actually wrong more often than he’s right. The Stormfax Almanac puts his accuracy at 39%. But, all this begs the question: why do we think a groundhog can predict the weather (or at least, why do we say as much)? Groundhog Day can be traced back to a few different things: Imbolc, Candlemas, and a group of hunters who actually did eat the groundhog. Im...