Buzz
On Sunday, February 2, 2025, Punxsutawney Phil will emerge from his little home in a tree stump to forecast whether winter will stretch on for six more weeks. Considering that Phil has been making weather predictions since the inaugural Groundhog Day in 1887, one might assume he's honed his skills by now.
However, the data tells a different story. The numbers suggest that consistency doesn't always come with practice, especially for mid-sized weather-predicting rodents. As Live Science reported, records from the Groundhog Club reveal that as of 2024, Phil has predicted winter 108 times, while forecasting an early spring just 21 times. (There are also nine years with no available records.) Based on information from the Stormfax Almanac, Phil's accuracy rate stands at a disappointing 39 percent. When looking at more recent, reliable weather data from 1969 onward, his accuracy dips even further, with only 36 percent of his predictions proving correct.
Feeling sorry for a clearly underperforming worker with a job that only requires a few minutes of his time each year? According to meteorologist Tim Roche from Weather Underground, Punxsutawney Phil fares better when he doesn’t spot his shadow. “Out of the 15 occasions when he didn’t see his shadow and forecasted an early spring, he got it right seven times,” Roche told Live Science. “That’s a 47 percent success rate.”
Phil isn’t the only animal trying its hand at predicting the weather. In 2025, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) decided to compare his accuracy to others based on their past 20 years of predictions—and sadly, Phil ranked near the bottom. Surprisingly, even taxidermied groundhogs outperformed him.
RANK | PROGNOSTICATOR | STATE | ACCURACY (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Staten Island Chuck (groundhog) | NY | 85% |
2 | General Beauregard Lee (groundhog) | GA | 80% |
3 | Lander Lil (prairie dog statue) | WY | 75% |
4 | Concord Charlie (never seen, but presumed groundhog) | WV | 65% |
5 | Gertie the Groundhog | IL | 65% |
6 | Jimmy the Groundhog | WI | 60% |
7 | Woodstock Willie (groundhog) | IL | 60% |
8 | Buckeye Chuck (groundhog) | OH | 55% |
9 | French Creek Freddie (groundhog) | WV | 55% |
10 | Malverne Mel (groundhog) | NY | 55% |
11 | Octoraro Orphie (groundhog) | PA | 52.63% |
12 | Dunkirk Dave (groundhog) | NY | 50% |
13 | Holtsville Hal (groundhog) | NY | 50% |
14 | Poor Richard (taxidermied groundhog) | PA | 50% |
15 | Uni the Groundhog (taxidermied groundhog) | PA | 47.37% |
16 | Schnogadahl Sammi (taxidermied groundhog) | PA | 38.89% |
17 | Punxsatawney Phil (groundhog) | PA | 35% |
18 | Woodie the Woodchuck (groundhog) | WI | 35% |
19 | Mojave Max (tortoise) | NV | 25% |
However, there’s an important caveat—some of the animals in the rankings didn’t predict every year over the last 20 years.
Although Phil is far from perfect, human meteorologists also aren’t always spot-on. As National Weather Service meteorologist David Unger shared with Live Science, “If our forecasts are about 60 percent accurate or higher, we consider that to be a good estimate.”
