What’s The Deal With Ground Hog Day?

It's Ground hog Day...Again? (Bill Murray said it best). Over the years, the interest in the good old groundhog  as a weatherman/woman/thing has always amused me. But up until recently, I had no idea where it came from. Thanks to technology and a lil free time, here's what I found out.

Ground hog Day:

1. Horniness and hunger are the elements that determine a groundhog’s behavior. Weather has nothing to do with it.
2. The folklore that is the origin of this day started with 16th century German farmers.
3. The original animal in German folklore is a badger.
4. German settlers found no badgers when they settled near Punxsutawney, PA. So they adapted their story to the groundhog.
5. The story goes that if the day was sunny and the animal saw it's shadow, it would be frightened back into it's hole and 6 more weeks of winter would follow.  If the animal stayed out...spring would come early.
6. Scientific studies over a 60 year period show that the groundhog’s accuracy in forecasting the on set of spring is only 28%.