Everyone knows by now that the famous prognosticator Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow, thereby predicting an early Spring. After spending my day yesterday indoors looking at hours of fluffy snowflakes falling, falling, falling, I was not feeling inclined to agree. Imagine my delight, then, when today it is a balmy 40 degrees in Boston and hardly any evidence of all that white stuff remains. I'm hoping for Spring.

Woody

An interesting twist to all this woodchuck weather wisdom is that a female groundhog from Howell, Michigan has been gaining popularity as news of her better record for accuracy has been making the rounds of the internet. Woody has been right in predicting when spring would come for six of the last eight years, the Detroit Free Press reported.

The intuitive groundhog lives at the Howell Nature Center. She competes for the spotlight with other famous groundhogs like Gen. Beau Lee in Georgia, Sir Walter Wally in North Carolina and Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania.

Her accuracy has often been attributed to the fact that she's a female and is therefore more responsible, the newspaper said. Others are not convinced that gender even plays a role though.

"I don't think there would be a difference," said John Griffiths, one of Punxsutawney's co-handlers. "As far as we're concerned, there is only one true seer of seers."

We can hardly expect the Punxsutawney camp to be unbiased. Are any of us really surprised to learn that a GIRL is better at predicting Spring's arrival?

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 1:25 PM