This Sunday is Groundhog Day, when America “attempts to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.”
But even though 4% of people believe Punxsutawney Phil is ALWAYS 100% right, that’s definitely not the case. In fact, Phil is not even the most accurate weather-predicting groundhog.
In honor of Groundhog Day, the NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) put together some stats on the groundhogs from across the U.S., to see who’s been the most accurate over the past couple decades.
They considered 19 groundhogs and similar species based on two main qualifications: They must have been prognosticating for at least 20 years, and they must be active, even if they don’t make a prediction EVERY year.
1st Place: Staten Island Chuck, out of New York. His accuracy is 85%.
2nd Place: General Beauregard Lee, out of Georgia. His accuracy is 80%.
3rd Place: Lander Lil, out of Wyoming. She isn’t an actual groundhog. She’s a bronze statue of a prairie dog. Close enough. She’s right 75% of the time.
4th Place: Concord Charlie, out of West Virginia. His accuracy is 65%.
5th Place: Gertie the Groundhog, out of Illinois. She’s right 65% of the time.
6th Place: Jimmy the Groundhog, out of Wisconsin. His accuracy is 60%.
7th Place: Woodstock Willie, out of Illinois. His accuracy is 60%.
8th Place: Buckeye Chuck, out of Ohio. His accuracy is 55%.
9th Place: French Creek Freddie, out of West Virginia. His accuracy is 55%.
10th Place: Malverne Mel, out of New York. His accuracy is 55%.
11th Place: Octoraro Orphie, a taxidermied groundhog out of Pennsylvania. His accuracy is 52.6%.
12th Place: Dunkirk Dave, out of New York. His accuracy is 50%.
13th Place: Holtsville Hal, out of New York. His accuracy is 50%.
14th Place: Poor Richard, a taxidermied groundhog out of Pennsylvania. His accuracy is 50%.
15th Place: Uni the Groundhog, a taxidermied groundhog out of Pennsylvania. His accuracy is 47.4%.
16th Place: Schnogadahl Sammi, a taxidermied groundhog out of Pennsylvania. His accuracy is 38.9%.
17th Place: Punxsutawney Phil, out of Pennsylvania. His accuracy is 35%. (Yeah, so Phil’s success rate is even less than three STUFFED ANIMALS. And you can’t blame the unpredictable weather in the area, because they are also in Pennsylvania.)
18th Place: Woody the Woodchuck, out of Michigan. His accuracy is 35%.
19th Place: Mojave Max, a TORTOISE out of Nevada, who was included for whatever reason. His accuracy is 25%.
(For even more data, hit up Groundhog-Day.com/Groundhogs.)
(NOAA)
