Growing up on the West Coast of the US, I knew about Punxsutawney Phil and some of the unusual aspects of his canon. But I only learned recently that there are a lot of towns across the US and Canada that have a weather-predicting animal tradition (which Wikipedia says came to the US from German immigrants arriving in Pennsylvania, but really took off after the release of Groundhog Day (1993)).
Here are a few of them I know of, all of whom the Punxsutawney Phil Groundhog Club claims are impostors:
-
Shubenacadie Sam, unusually, is not woken from hibernation for Groundhog Day. Pictured above: me when I successfully turn off my shadowcasting code vs. me when the shadow pass is still active
- In 2018, nearby Nova Scotian Lucy the Lobster also began predicting the weather.
-
My favorite-named groundhog, Fred la marmotte, unfortunately
passed away(edit: was found dead) today (edit: Fred likely passed away in the late fall or early December during hibernation — thank you to Kit for the clarification!). Fred's father, Gros Fred, held the position from 2010 to 2017 and in 2019. Fred's son, Petit Fred, appeared in 2018. -
Staten Island Chuck, also referred to as Charles G. Hogg, has historically had a somewhat fraught relationship with New York City mayors. According to Wikipedia, Chuck has an excellent 82% success rate (Phil claims 100% but actually has a success rate of 35-41%). There is a book in which Chuck builds a weather station.
-
Stormy Marmot represents the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado — but his Boulder colleague, Flatiron Freddy, is better dressed and also may not be mortal.
-
Snohomish Slew (Snohomish, WA, US) is a bullfrog. That's OK though, many animals can make weather predictions. As the lore states, Snohomish's frogcast is delivered in Groundfrogese.
-
Octoraro Orphie claims to have 100% accuracy since 1908. (As they say, "the groundhog is always correct; sometimes, however, the weather gets it wrong". Punxsutawney Phil also makes this claim but cannot be believed.) Orphie has also maintained the same expression for decades, but is not as well dressed as Flatiron Freddy.
-
Mount Joy Minnie seems to wear a different hat each year.
-
The Shipoke neighborhood of Harrisburg announced their new weather-predicting dog, Shipoke Monty in 2022, after the previous one (listed variously as Sheena or Bubble), moved to New Orleans.