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Groundhog Day is celebrated in the US and Canada every year. The date is associated with the tradition of weather forecasting, which is entrusted to representatives of these animals across the ocean. According to popular beliefs, groundhogs are supposedly able to foretell whether winter will soon recede.
It is believed that if on the morning of February 2 (due to the time difference from 15:00 Moscow time) the legendary groundhog Phil, who lives in the zoo in Punxsutawney (Pennsylvania), wakes up and gets out of his mink, but immediately returns there, seeing his own shade, then the winter will last another month and a half. If the shadow does not frighten the groundhog and he decides not to run back to the house, this means the arrival of early spring.
In North America, Groundhog Day began to be celebrated thanks to immigrants from Germany, the so-called Pennsylvania Germans.
In Russia, they also monitor the behavior of Phil’s relatives who live in zoos on this day. Spring can be predicted by marmots Archie, Nagaina and Sarah from the Moscow Zoo and Izhorik and Augustina from the Leningrad Zoo.
Meanwhile, according to the folk calendar in the Russian Federation, February 2 is also one of the days in which weather forecasts were made for a long period. They guessed on Efimov’s day about what the weather would be like on Maslenitsa.
“Get down from the stove on Yefim – guess about Shrovetide,” they said in Russia. If there was a blizzard that day, then blizzards were expected in the spring, Calend points out.
Source: Rosbalt
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
