Groundhog Day - February 2

Groundhog Day may seem like a newfangled ceremony — what with Punxsutawney Phil living in a climate-controlled environment in the town library (where he is fed dog food and ice cream) and being transported once a year to Gobbler's Knob where tuxedo-clad gentlemen await his exit from a heated burrow at 7:25 a.m. on February 2 and bend down respectfully to receive his meteorological prognostications and convey them to a breathless media and an attentive world...

But, in truth, the roots of Groundhog Day go way back. Consider this entry from the diary of a shopkeeper named James Morris, of Morgantown, Pennsylvania:
February 4, 1841 — "...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 nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate." (From the Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore Center at Franklin and Marshall College.)

Go back further, and you'll come across Imbolc, midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox (one of the year's cross-quarter days). It is celebrated nowadays on February 1 or 2, and it is a festival of light reflecting the lengthening days and the coming of spring. In fact, in the Irish calendar, Imbolc is the first day of spring. This correlates nicely with the belief that the lack of a shadow on that day indicates the end of winter (cloudy, overcast skies often come together with milder temperatures).

The groundhog, a brownish, short-legged, heavyset cousin of the squirrel, is a hibernating animal that lives in burrows. Its other name is woodchuck, which inspired the famous tongue twister: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

The traditional answer is: A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. But a more practical piece of information came from wildlife expert Richard Thomas, quoted in The Wall Street Journal. He calculated that the average groundhog moves approximately one square meter (35 cubic feet), or 320 kilograms (700 pounds), of dirt when digging a burrow.

On February 2, groundhogs by any name will take a break from their burrowing and their hibernating, and check the ground to see whether winter is on its last gasp or still going strong.

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