Punxsutawney Phil has become part of the virtue-signaling crowd, not a whole lot different than illiterates from the entertainment field who scream Fxxx ICE as routinely as average people say hello.
They play to their leftist crowd. Phil knows people, too. He recognizes that doom weather porn sells and, along that line, today he came across with his usual prediction of six more weeks of winter weather.
The meteorologist groundhog took the figurative temperature of the populace. Today was warmer and sunnier than it’s been, but the ground remains deep with snow, temperatures have dipped below zero on many recent nights, and are predicted to do so again in coming days.
Against that backdrop, tell the people what they fear, that harsh winter continues. If you’re wrong, and an early spring arrives, will people remember you were wrong, or be mad at you because of it?
Does Al Gore ever apologize for being wrong about climate catastrophes he’s predicted for decades, yet never seem to arrive?
I dragged myself out of bed around midday today (still ailing, unfortunately) to find granddaughter No. 2 home from school, suffering the same combo of flu and ear infection that put her sister, granddaughter No. 3, on the shelf last week.
I asked her for Phil’s prediction, interrupting the response to volunteer that it likely was six more weeks of winter. She confirmed that to be correct.
It’s not like I made a 50-50 pick. Phil predicts six more weeks of winter about 84 percent of the time, according to one article I read online. Phil is reported to have seen his shadow 32 straight years, from 1903 through 1933 inclusive.
That same online report indicated Phil has an accuracy rating of just 35 percent, as determined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). You read that right, an agency of the federal government wastes its time and our tax dollars monitoring the accuracy of Phil and his fellow animal weather prognosticators.
NOAA says Staten Island Chuck is much more accurate, with a success rate for his predictions of 85 percent. Supposedly there is a bronze prairie dog statue in Wyoming, Lander Lil, with a 75-percent accuracy rating.
Based on those numbers, we should be happy with Phil’s pick, because it’s about a 65-percent likelihood to be wrong.
And here, NOAA uses more conventional methods such as computer modeling to weigh in with its own fearless prediction. Said long-range forecast is that most of the United States will experience above-average temperatures in February, March and April.
Sorry, Phil, but I’m going with NOAA’s bytes over the occasional bites you put on the fingers of your overly aggressive handlers.
Sam Ross Jr's site 