HERNDON, Va. — Ever wonder about the folklore of a groundhog forecasting the onset of spring based on its shadow?
“If they come out and it’s a sunny day and they see their shadow, they get scared of their shadow and run back in their burrow and sleep for six more weeks, meaning there’ll be six more weeks of winter,” explains Halley Johnson, an interpreter at Frying Pan Farm Park, in Fairfax County.
“If they come out and it’s a cloudy, overcast day, or they just don’t see their shadow, they’ll stay out, start moving around, there’ll be an early spring,” Johnson says.
Monday is Groundhog Day — a day when Punxsutawney Phil — Pennsylvania’s famed groundhog — emerges to determine the fate of winter.
It’s fair to point out that Johnson’s research indicates that groundhogs have been right only about 37 to 39 percent of the time.
Something else should be said about groundhogs today: In the natural world, they’re hibernating right now, some five feet underground, or at least below the frost line, living off their fat reserves.
“Their heart rate gets really slow; their body temperature can drop to not that much higher than the surrounding air temperature,” Johnson says.
By the way, which is it — groundhog? Woodchuck? Depending on what part of the country you’re in, they could be called ground squirrels, marmots and even whistle pigs.
Whatever they are, Monday is their day.
“They do have their own holiday and not all animals can say that,” Johnson says.
We get a fleeting glimpse of a dazed-looking groundhog held aloft Monday by a man in a top hat in Pennsylvania. But in the wild, groundhogs won’t start peeking out of their burrows till late March or early April.
Then, when the weather is warmer, especially at dusk in summertime, sharp eyes will spot them along the side of the road looking like fat lumps of dark brown fur — pasture pigs, land beavers or whatever you call them.
