Famed and furry forecasters of spring are set to make their predictions Thursday morning.
It’s Groundhog Day, and as folklore goes, a groundhog will emerge from its burrow and if it does not see its shadow, then spring is just around the corner, while if it does and retreats, then we can expect six more weeks of winter.
Celebrity groundhog Shubenacadie Sam kicks off Canada’s first prediction shortly after sunrise over Nova Scotia, followed later by Ontario’s Wiarton Willie.
Willie’s hosts in South Bruce Peninsula say the groundhog is once again white-furred as per local legend, after town spokeswoman Danielle Edwards says it brought in an “understudy” with a more traditional brown hue last year while it searched for a replacement.
Trending Now
Story continues below advertisement
Willie was nowhere to be seen on the momentous day in 2021 and the town only later acknowledged the furry forecaster had died, launching a search that ended this past summer when town says it was able to get a white-haired groundhog from Cleveland, Ohio.
In a playful and peer-reviewed study published by the American Meteorological Society, researchers out of Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., say groundhogs are “beyond a shadow of a doubt” no better than chance at prognosticating the arrival of spring.
