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Six More Weeks?!

A man wearing a black hat and coat smiles while holding a groundhog during a Groundhog Day event.
JEFF SWENSEN—GETTY IMAGES

A groundhog saw the future on February 2. Punxsutawney Phil is the mascot of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania. His handlers declared his “prediction” in front of a crowd of thousands: six more weeks of wintry weather in the U.S.

The prediction might not be totally accurate. “We know this is silly,” Marcy Galando, executive director of the club, told the AP. The lighthearted annual event began in 1887.