January 28,2020
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Groundhog Day or Ground-Hog Day,is a popular tradition celebrated in the United States and Canada on February 2.It derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog (Deitsch: Grundsau, Grunddax, Dax) emerging from its burrow on this day sees a shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat to its den and winter will persist for six more weeks, and if he does not, due to cloudiness, spring season will arrive early.
After yesterdays massive Nor ester dumping anywhere from 7 to 40 inches of snow on Bergen county we need some hope for spring .
The earliest mention of Groundhog Day is a February 2, 1840 entry in the diary of James L. Morris of Morgantown, Pennsylvania, in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, according to the book on the subject by Don Yoder. This was a Welsh enclave but the diarist was commenting on his neighbors who were of German stock.
The Groundhog Day ceremony held at Punxsutawney in central Pennsylvania has become the most attended. Grundsow Lodges in Pennsylvania Dutch Country in the southeast part of the state celebrate them as well. Other cities in the United States and Canada have also adopted the event.
The largest Groundhog Day celebration is held in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where crowds as large as 40,000 gather each year[16] (nearly eight times the year-round population of the town).[17] The average draw had been about 2,000 until the year after the movie screened in 1993, after which attendance rose to about 10,000.[11] The official Phil is pretended to be a supercentenarian, having been the same forecasting beast since 1887
The 1993 movie (Groundhog Day) helped boost recognition of the custom, and the celebration has spread even further afield. In 2009, Quebec began to mark the day (Canadian French: Jour de la Marmotte) with its own groundhog.
According to Groundhog Day organizers, the rodents’ forecasts are accurate 75% to 90% of the time. However, a Canadian study for 13 cities in the past 30 to 40 years found that the weather patterns predicted on Groundhog Day were only 37% accurate over that time period.