By David Jennings
Staff writer
It’s that time of year again – the time when people look to the largest member of the squirrel family for their weather forecast. Groundhog Day 2010 is today, and according to legend, if he sees his shadow, he is predicting six more weeks of winter and returns to his burrow. If he does not see his shadow, spring is just around the corner.
According to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, the tradition dates back to the early days of Christianity in Europe and grew out of a winter festival called Candlemas Day, a day for clergy to bless and distribute candles. According to legend, clear skies on Candlemas Day meant an extended winter.
The Roman legions, during the conquest of the northern country, brought this tradition to the Germans, who concluded that if the sun made an appearance on Candlemas Day, a hedgehog would cast a shadow, thus predicting six more weeks of bad weather or “Second Winter.”
In Germany, the hedgehog became part of the legend. The German twist was that on a clear, sunny day, the hedgehog would cast a shadow. Some of Pennsylvania’s earliest settlers were German, and they noted a large population of groundhogs. Because of its resemblance to the European hedgehog, the groundhog carried on the tradition.
While the tradition has been carried out many times and many places, do groundhogs and their shadows have the mythical ability of forecasting either an early spring or lengthier winter?
“Cold weather is usually accompanied with dry air,” says Dr. Ted Klimasewski, interim chairman of Psychology at Jacksonville State. “So, if the groundhog ‘sees his shadow’ he is really just returning to his burrow, because of the current conditions.”
Dr. K has been doing meteorology and climatology as a professor and television forecaster for over 30 years at television stations in Birmingham, Mobile, Huntsville and Anniston.
But, according to Dr. Ted K, there is science behind why it seems the groundhogs are usually right.
“It’s not that the groundhog predicts,” said Dr. Ted K. “It’s that he represents something that is happening in the sky. If he returns, it is usually because it is cold and dry. If it is cold and dry, that’s a sign that we will have a continuation of winter weather. His actions go along with the seasonal outlook.”
So, there is no magic, but there is some truth to the findings. However, don’t think weather reporters will be replaced by groundhogs any time soon.
“Here is one of the problems; you have got to have a groundhog in all the regions,” said Dr. Ted K. “You know, Pennsylvania has got its Punxsutawney Phil, and that’s fine, but the South needs one too because our weather here is going to be different than what it is in the Northeast. So we need our own groundhog.”
The closes thing to Phil for Jacksonville will be in Atlanta. A groundhog named General Beauregard Lee will be making a prediction for the area. But, if you would like a guess from a human, Dr. Ted K gave us his own groundhog free prediction.
“I predict continuation of the cold weather because of two reasons: one, we are getting shots of cold from the north continuously, and two, the possibility of additional snows because of low pressures coming out of the Gulf of Mexico. That is often the key to us getting snow, low pressures pumping in moisture combined with cold air. The pattern has been rather consistent over the last six months,” said Dr. K. “One of the reasons I see a continuation in this is because El Nino has kicked in this year, helping develop low pressures in the Pacific and carry them all the way over to the Gulf of Mexico”
You can catch more of Dr. Ted K’s weather forecasts every weeknight at on WJXS TV’s nightly News at Nine.
