yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Groundhog Day Explained


3m read
·Nov 7, 2024

February is home to one of the most important holidays of the year not to forget: Groundhog Day. If you live outside of Can-merica, then you might not know what a groundhog is, so... here you go: this is a groundhog. They're basically giant grumpy squirrels who dig burrows underground. Burrows large enough, in fact, to occasionally make their comfy home a structural hazard to your comfy home. This explains the first half of their name.

The second half is because they're kind of fat -- though unlike their fellow Can-mericans -- when winter arrives, they need their excess weight to go into hibernation. The story of the holiday is that, on February 2nd, the wise groundhogs wake from hibernation to peek out of their burrow and look at the world. If they see their shadow, they go back inside, which predicts six more weeks of winter. If they don't, then spring will come early.

The holiday started in the 1800s as a Pennsylvania Dutch custom of weather prediction and today is celebrated in Canada and 49 of the fifty states, the exception being Alaska, which in 2009 decided to forgo Groundhog Day in favor of Marmot Day. Outside of Alaska, many groundhogs contend with each other to be the King of Seasonal Weather Prediction, their main weapon in this war being their delightful names such as: Queen Charlotte and Sir Walter Wally in North Carolina, Shubenacadie Sam of Nova Scotia, Staten Island Chuck from New York, French Creek Freddie in West Virginia, and... Gus from Athens, Georgia.

Though this last groundhog is somewhat overshadowed by his neighbor, General Beauregard Lee, who one must assume has stylish facial hair and fans himself on the veranda of his plantation home while drinking mint julep and pining for the day when the South will rise again.

1,000 miles north of the General, Wiarton Willie is the Groundhog King of Canada, who throws an annual party to help him stay on top and make sure that people keep building epic statues of him. But, if there could be only one, Punxsutawney Phil would be him. Not only is his name the most fun to say, but he also has quite a posse of top-hatted, tuxedoed men who look after him and call themselves the inner circle.

According to them, Punxsutawney Phil has been making predictions since the 1880s. Not a Punxsutawney Phil, mind you, but this Punxsutawney Phil who is functionally immortal because of a magic life-extending elixir the inner circle members prepare for him so that he can continue to make predictions -- and bring in tourist revenue -- until the end of time.

He also speaks a language called Groundhogese that only the president of the inner circle can understand. If you think that Groundhog Day is a dumb, pointless holiday, then there are two things you should consider:

1st: you have no sense of fun and 2nd, you better be careful on Groundhog Day, because in addition to their weather predicting day jobs, these groundhogs also have the magical power to trap you in an infinite time loop until you learn to be less of a jerk.

Happy Groundhog Day!

More Articles

View All
Fossils 101 | National Geographic
(gentle music) [Narrator] Like buried treasure, they lie hidden from sight. Echoes of an ancient past, they whisper secrets and tell tales once lost to time. Fossils are remnants or impressions of ancient organisms that are naturally preserved in stone. …
Multiplying monomials | Algebra I | Khan Academy
All right, in this video we’re going to be multiplying monomials together. Let me give you an example of a monomial: 4 x squared. That’s a monomial. Now, why? Well, mono means one, which refers to the number of terms. So this 4x squared, this is all one t…
How to Make a Friction Fire | Live Free or Die: DIY
[Music] I want to talk to you a little bit about friction fire. The tools that you need are: you need your hearth board, you need a spindle, and you also need a nest. With the nest, I like to start out with my longer fibers, and I’ll just twist those arou…
Helium 101 | National Geographic
[Narrator] Most people know helium as the lighter than air gas that fills our party balloons. But more importantly, it’s an irreplaceable element for science and industry. Helium was discovered in 1868 during a solar eclipse. Astronomers observed a yellow…
We Feed People | Official Trailer | Disney+
Take a look. We’re going through very high water. Is the only way to be delivering food? I’m so glad that we had this track. I hope we are able to feed the people, but they hope we are going to be safe. Pump, I love the word cook because the word cooked …
Exclusive Sneak Peek | Diana: In Her Own Words
[Music] [Music] Right questions here we [Music] are. Yeah, has anything come up since the last meetings? Any afterthoughts? Well, only about being accused at very H of stopping him hunting and shooting. Let’s now go back to the other life before this l…