6 More Weeks of Winter!

PUNXSUTAWNEY, PA. – February 2, 2002 — Punxsutawney Phil is predicting six more weeks of winter, but when it comes to the Super Bowl, the oddsmakers are on their own. The famous groundhog refused to make a pick for Sunday's football game. "I think he was indifferent," said Bill Cooper, president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club Inner Circle. "I just don't think he cares. What can I say? He's only a groundhog."

To the disappointment of the crowd of at least 40,000 people celebrating Groundhog Day at Gobbler's Knob, Phil saw his shadow on a clear, sunny morning.

Officials prepared for larger crowds than normal because Groundhog Day fell on a Saturday. Concerns about rowdy drinkers coupled with the Sept. 11 attacks led to stepped-up security but the throngs appeared well-behaved. For the first time ever, organizers sold all 38,000 bus tickets to the event.

German superstition holds that if an animal sees its shadow on Feb. 2 – the Christian holiday of Candlemas – then bad weather is in store. A shadow would mean six more weeks of winter.

Phil's handlers had announced in January that the groundhog would predict the outcome of the Super Bowl. That was when the nearby Pittsburgh Steelers were favored to win the AFC championship game, and across the state the Philadelphia Eagles were playing for the NFC title. But both Pennsylvania teams lost, leaving the St. Louis Rams facing the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl in New Orleans.

Stam Zervanos, associate professor of biology at Penn State University's Berks-Lehigh Valley College in Reading, advised against betting the farm on the groundhog's weather or football prognosticating, saying the animal has an entirely different reason for emerging from his hole.

"Basically, they arouse to mate," said Zervanos, who has spent years studying groundhog behavior. The groundhogs awake in January or February to mate, then return to their holes to resume their long winter's nap.

"They're going to mate, and they're going back into hibernation for about four weeks before they start feeding and having their young," Zervanos said.

At State College-based AccuWeather Inc., where science trumps superstition, meteorologists predict February and March will be slightly colder than usual around the Great Lakes and for much of the East Coast, while above-normal temperatures are expected in the northern plains.

In Punxsutawney, AccuWeather's long-range forecast calls for "near to slightly below normal," Rayno said. "I suspect that that translates into six more weeks of winter."

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Author: 6 ABC - AP