We’ve come so far.
It’s no wonder that people complain about the accuracy of weather forecasts when the Groundhog Day ceremony looks like it was pulled right out of Alice in Wonderland.
This is basically how it works:
- A crowd gathers, as if for something important.
- Twenty men in top hats and monocles wake up the groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, and present him in Simba-fashion to the people.
- One of the men talks to the groundhog and pretends that it has responded.
- Another man reads a formal result from a wooden scroll (yes, a scroll) and reveals, through limerick, that there will be six more weeks of winter.
- Everyone in the crowd yells angrily.
- That’s it. Weather has happened.
Sure, it’s not science, but it’s . . . something.
