FiveThirtyEight looks into accuracy of Groundhog Day forecasters

by Countdowntogroundhogday on February 3rd, 2022

Ever wonder how accurate Punxsutawney Phil‘s predictions are compared to the actual weather? Well if you have, you should check out this feature from FiveThirtyEight from Simran Parwani and Kaleigh Rogers.

The article examines historical weather data versus Phil’s prediction for a number of years. It also looks at a number of other Groundhog Day prognosticators’ track records as well, such as Buckeye Chuck, Chuck Wood, and Snohomish Slew. Each prognosticator’s predictions are also analyzed versus the various climate regions of the U.S.

Of course, we’re particularly excited about this article, because it uses a lot of the data we’ve been collecting about the various prognosticators and their predictions over the years. We got to speak to one of the reporters about how we collected our data and what led to the creation of this site, so it was really cool.

In the end the authors determined that Punxsutawney Phil is only correct about 1/3rd of the time. Of the forecasters analyzed, General Beauregard Lee had the best overall average, with about 63 percent accuracy across the 9 different regions.

Be sure to check out all of the great analysis and let us know if you agree with FiveThirtyEight’s conclusions or not.

Tags: fivethirtyeight, groundhog day, groundhogs