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full screen AJ Dereume, president of the Groundhog Club, holds up Punxsutawney Phil after the animal spawns in early spring. Photo: Barry Reeger/AP/TT
It will be an early spring, at least in the US. The world-famous weather oracle Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania did not see his shadow when he arrived at dawn on Friday.
According to tradition, this means that the United States will avoid another six weeks of winter – if the prediction now comes true, according to scientists, it will happen only four times out of ten.
Woodchucks predict the weather in several places in the United States on February 2, a phenomenon that became widely known through the movie “Monday All Week”.
Most famous is the tradition in Punxsutawney, and Phil has become world famous, or at least all the animals that since 1887 have “played” the weather oracle.