iStockphoto / mirecca
Today is Groundhog Day, a worldwide holiday that primarily revolves around Punxsutawney Phil in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, the world’s foremost expert in weather prediction. But never content to sit on the sidelines, Canada rolls out a D-list cadre of imposters to predict the weather and this year most of them picked against Phil’s predictions.
One of the Canadian usurpers goes by the name of Wiarton Willie, is calling for an early Spring. Another, Lucy the Lobster, is also calling for an early Spring. As is Fred la marmotte from Quebec.
Punxsutawney Phil Calls For Six More Weeks Of Winter, Canadians Disagree
For starters, the entire existence of Wiarton Willie was created because a reporter in the 1950s, 70 years after the first newspaper mention of Punxsutawney Phil, traveled to some Podunk town for a nonexistent Groundhog Day Party.
Once there, the Toronto Star reporter found some locals throwing back drinks at the local watering hole which happened to be the Arlington Hotel. The reporter told those locals they’d traveled out to Wiarton after seeing some invitation from a resident, Mac McKenzie, who promised a Groundhog Day celebration that turned out to be nonexistent.
So the local drunks did the only logical thing and grabbed one of their wives fur hats which had a large button on it. They dug a hole in the snow to make it look like a groundhog emerging from a burrow and staged a photo. From there, a Wiarton Groundhog Day celebration was created all because of this reporter that got duped into traveling to the middle of nowhere.
Flash forward a few decades and Punxsutawney Phil still has no competition in Wiarton. The locals originally used a trio of groundhogs named Grundoon, Muldoon and Sand Dune.
It wasn’t until some time in the 1980s that Wiarton Willie came to exist. And the original Wiarton Willie died back in 1999… Would a magical marmot unceremoniously die the year before the new millennia? I don’t think so. Clearly he was an imposter.
Wiarton Willie was rolled out for his prognostication this morning after Punxsutawney Phil made his prediction of six more weeks of Winter. Willie, like the dumbdumb that he is, picked an ‘Early Spring’ for the EIGHTH YEAR IN A ROW. He has picked ‘early spring’ in 9 of the past 10 years.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day, I guess? But here’s the thing: Wiarton Willie is notoriously horrendous at predicting the weather. A scientific analysis found that Wiarton Willie only correctly predicts an Early Spring / Long Winter 25% of the time. They could be flipping a coin and be WAY MORE accurate than this rodent.
Anyway, here is the fraud doing his best Punxsutawney Phil prediction but incorrectly surmising Spring is around the corner. What an idiot:
3 of the 4 weather predictors in Canada all called for an Early Spring. Those fools include Shubenacadie Sam in Nova Scotia, Lucy the Lobster in Nova Scotia, and Fred la marmotte in Quebec.
Only Van Isle Violet in Nanaimo, British Columbia correctly sided with Punxsutawney Phil.
Side note: why on God’s green earth isn’t the movie Groundhog Day on TV 24/7 all day today like A Christmas Story is on December 25th? This is a massive missed opportunity. The movie is available to stream on Hulu/Disney+ but I haven’t seen it anywhere on TV all day and I’ve looked constantly.