Groundhog Day 2012 prediction

Punxsutawney Phil, perhaps the most famous groundhog (aka whistle-pig), is due to make his appearance this Thursday, Feb. 2nd. The appearance the country is really awaiting with bated breath is that of his shadow.

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The grand holiday of Groundhog day takes its roots from a similar European tradition, wherein a badger or some other non-groundhog little rat guy comes out, does a little dance and then the elders determine whether or not you're going to need to wear a parka for the next few days. The American version of this exciting time dates back to as early as the mid-19th century in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania. Since then, many cities have adopted their own groundhog to come out and try to spy his shadow. However, Punxsutawney Phil, or Seer of Seers Prognosticator of Prognosticators Weather Predictor Extraordinaire as he's sometimes known, is by far the most revered. He is so revered, in fact, that the so-called Inner Circle was established to protect and advise him. The Inner Circle is comprised of 15 members with such meaningful titles as "Stump Warden," "Thunder Conductor," and my personal favorite, "Big Chill."

(SPOILER ALERT: If you do not wish to know the outcome of this year's coming Groundhog day, navigate yourself away from this page. Perhaps one of our other gripping and timely posts would better interest you and possibly your friends.)

Here at Defeasible Reasoning, we take pride in knowing things before you do and then rubbing your face in it telling you about it. To that end, we've pored over recent trend data to bring you such predictions as the outcome for the Florida Republican Primary and the Nevada Republican Caucus. Whether Punxsutawney Phil will see his shadow is equally important. After months of observing the trends in atmospheric pressures, barometric altitudes, cloud form patterns, Sun illumination angles and temperature inversion data, we've come to the conclusion that Punxsutawney Phil will indeed see his shadow at approximately 7:22am EST. Go get those heavy winter coats out of the attic, folks, it's going to be a 6 week longer Winter.

 

 

EDIT: As predicted, Punx Phil crawled out of his hidey hole to be surprised by his shadow, thus predicting 6 more weeks of Winter. You're welcome for the heads up.