The arrival of annual Groundhog Day celebrations Friday, Feb. ![]() Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, while Vice President Dan McGinley reads the scroll during the 137th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., Feb. Yoder concluded the festival has roots in “ancient, undoubtedly prehistoric, weather lore.”įILE - Groundhog Club handler A.J. Historians have found a reference in an 1841 diary to groundhog weather forecasts in early February among families of German descent in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, according to the late Don Yoder, a University of Pennsylvania professor whose 2003 book about Groundhog Day explored the Celtic connection. Pennsylvania Germans apparently substituted the groundhog, endemic to the eastern and midwestern United States. ![]() What the Celts called Imbolc is also around when Christians celebrate Candlemas, timed to Joseph and Mary’s presentation of Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem.Īncient people would watch the sun, stars and animal behavior to guide farming practices and other decisions, and the practice of watching an animal’s emergence from winter hibernation to forecast weather has roots in a similar German tradition involving badgers or bears. Celtic people across Europe marked the four days that are midway between the winter solstice, the spring equinox, the summer solstice and the fall equinox.
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