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Groundhog is a fraud says expert
02/02/2001 10:09 - (SA)
Washington - At the crack of dawn on Friday, in a time-honoured American tradition, a groundhog will emerge from his burrow to signal whether spring has arrived - and probably get it wrong. At least that's the heretic view of a climate expert who reckons Groundhog Day is just a load of hogwash.
The February 2 ritual has been observed in a small Pennsylvania town for 114 years: "Phil", the furry rodent, is yanked from his home after a long winter sleep. If he sees his own shadow, he'll presume six more weeks of winter and return to his burrow. If the skies are cloudy and there is no shadow, however, he thinks spring has arrived and stays outside.
Unfortunately, he is just as likely to get it right as he is to get it wrong, says Tom Ross, a climate expert with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Ross has checked the beast's predictions against actual climate data in search of a correlation and found "there's just nothing there". According to a report by ABC News, the groundhog had shown "no predictive skill during the most recent years of this analysis".
Perhaps it's unfair to expect a precise forecast from Phil, who lives in an imitation tree trunk at Gobbler's Nob in the town of Punxsutawney.
Rather than hibernate, he has spent the past few days on a New York publicity tour that included an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, all aimed at boosting his home state's tourism industry. When he finally emerges from his cosy home at 7:30 am on Friday, tens of thousands of onlookers will be there to greet him. - Sapa-DPA
- SAPA
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