Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Sunday and predicted six more weeks of wintry weather, his top-hatted handlers announced to a raucous, record-size crowd at Gobbler's Knob in Pennsylvania, per the AP. The woodchuck's weather forecast is an annual ritual that goes back more than a century in western Pennsylvania, with far older roots in European folklore, but it took Bill Murray's 1993 Groundhog Day to transform the event into what it is today, with tens of thousands of revelers at the scene and imitators scattered around the United States and beyond.
The crowd was treated to a fireworks show, confetti, and live music that ranged from the Ramones to "Pennsylvania Polka" as they awaited sunrise and Phil's emergence. Gov. Josh Shapiro, local, and state elected officials and a pair of pageant winners were among the dignitaries at the scene. When Phil is deemed to have not seen his shadow, that is said to usher in an early spring. When he does see it, there will be six more weeks of winter. Phil has predicted a longer winter far more often than an early spring, and one effort to track his accuracy concluded he was right less than half the time—though what six more weeks of winter means is a little subjective.
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