Ground Hog Day is just a bit of speculatory fun we Americans have each year. This year the most awesomely named Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and predicted six more week of winter. If we consider all possibilities equal, then here are the possible results:
Sees shadow, predicts winter, winter happens
Sees shadow, predicts winter, spring happens
No shadow, predicts spring, winter happens
No shadow, predicts spring, spring happens
All things being equal, this groundhog only has a 25% chance of getting it right! The festival has been going on for over a hundred years now and that gives us a very large amount of data points to work with. My morning weatherman says Phil has been right only 39% of the time. You know what this means? It's not Phil that's wrong, it's us that reading his results wrong! If we flip the readings to no shadow=winter, then our results flip, giving Phil a wonderful success rate of 61%! We can pat him on the head and so warmly saying,"Good rodent, nice work."
When asked about the results Mr Johnson, vice President of Punxsutawney Phil's Inner Circle, says
"He's never been wrong." Phil is "incapable of error," he said, because the groundhog smartly avoids being site-specific in his prognostications.
If Phil predicts six more weeks of winter, said Johnston, "I guarantee you someone's going to have six more weeks of winter."
Yup, Punxsutawney Phil is 100% right, but we won't know it fully until we teach him to throw darts at a map.
Here's hoping calendar companies will start adding this wonderful holiday to the calendar again!
