By Angelina Ricker
Here’s my controversial take: I was hoping for six more weeks of winter. Sitting next to a fire, while curled up in a soft blanket and drinking hot chocolate, is definitely the way to go.
And yet it seems like everybody I talk to couldn’t disagree more.
So I’m one of the few fans of this year’s Groundhog Day prediction.
Groundhog Day is probably one of the most peculiar U.S. holidays. I mean, who decided it was going to be up to a rodent to determine the weather for the coming month?
Dating back to February 2nd, 1887, the odd tradition of Groundhog Day is a mixture of the Christian holiday Candlemas and German folklore, which added a hedgehog to the celebration. When the tradition reached the United States, the lack of hedgehogs led them to change the animal to the more common groundhog we see today.
Even though few of us actively hop on the groundhog website to see if the groundhog saw his shadow or not, it’s still likely to show up on our social media feed, between baby boo remixes and either bum us out or get us excited, no matter how inaccurate the animal may be.
On February 2, 2026, the infamous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, saw his shadow, predicting six more weeks of winter. Georgia’s groundhog, General Beauregard Lee, saw his shadow as well, and this groundhog has an 80% accuracy rate. By the way, not all weather-predicting groundhogs are male. Woody in Michigan and Gertie in Illinois, both of whom predicted six more weeks of winter, are female.
There are many annoyed Lovett students. One girl (who asked to remain anonymous) said that she preferred spring, and, more extremely, that the groundhog was stupid. “The groundhog can get a stick of dynamite and a hose down his little ground-hole,” she said. She also mentioned that Groundhog Day was only for bringing false hope to delusional people.
Others had a very similar opinion. Most students I interviewed answered that they preferred spring, and they didn’t like this year’s groundhog’s prediction. Others simply stated that they couldn’t care less about the groundhog, and that they wouldn’t let a groundhog decide the weather for them.
But in contrast to winter hate, freshman Emily Choi told me that she prefers six more weeks of winter because spring would bring pollen. She’s allergic. I guess the cold temperatures are worth being able to breathe. But unfortunately, Emily was the only person I interviewed who agreed that winter is better than spring.
On a more scientific note, I interviewed a Lovett science teacher, Dr. Shelander, about her thoughts on Groundhog Day.
“There’s nothing scientific about it, so it’s just fun to see if the groundhog sees his show or not,” she said. “If you look at the calendar from when they do it into the week until the spring Equinox, it’s six weeks anyway, so anyway, if he sees his shadow or not, we still are at six weeks until spring officially begins.”
Whatever we might prefer, General Beauregard and Punxsutawney’s predictions seem to be correct. Georgia got snow (or ice, depending on where you live), and the temperatures dipped below 40 degrees, allowing us to wear long sleeves and pants without sweating bullets while still looking nonchalant. Not to mention the school days we missed due to snow! And with a week to go before spring break, temperatures dropped again, which will hopefully help those trying to ski around here.
With almost everybody I interviewed being team Groundhog-Day-is-stupid-and-I-want-spring, it’s safe to say that the groundhogs aren’t the most agreeable animals out there. But even if it’s just meteorology and not some unknown groundhog magical force that predicts the weather, we got snow and chilling temperatures. So maybe the groundhogs had a pretty lucky guess this year.
And I’ll get to drink a little more hot chocolate.
