FRENCH CREEK, W.Va. — Only a few hours after the world’s most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his hole on Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania and proclaimed six more weeks of winter, many hoped West Virginia’s official weather forecasting varmint might offer a different outcome.
Tyler Evans, the manager of the West Virginia Wildlife Center in Upshur County, explained things looked good early on for a shadowless morning for French Creek Freddie.
“It was overcast early in the morning, but then about ten minutes before he was to emerge, the sun poked through,” said Evans of the Thursday ceremony at the Wildlife Center. “I guess that was enough to get our report and since it was sticking around, I’d say that’s pretty accurate.”
Freddie in recent years had been on a role until last year and Evans is hoping his new streak of inaccuracy will sustain for another year.
“For the second year in a row, he saw his shadow so that would lead us to believe we’re going to have a little more winter weather before it gets mild again,” Evans said. “However, last year he was wrong, so deep down some of us are hoping he’ll be wrong again and we’ll be treated to an early spring.”
The ceremony at the Wildlife Center has become an annual event which has grown into a celebration with a couple of hundred in attendance. There is food and games, like the “wood chucking contest”, a play on words to see who can throw a block of wood nearest a target. The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources also uses the opportunity for education outreach to explain the biology of the groundhog and the roots of Groundhog Day. The tradition started in Germany and was brought to America.
“Across the pond they would use a hedgehog or a badger to predict how severe the remaining winter might be,” Evans said. “As they began to migrate over to the New World, they realized hedgehogs and badgers weren’t as common and groundhogs were. Therefore the groundhog became the new tool to prognosticate the weather.”