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| The pressure to forecast the weather accurately was too great for Milltown Mel, a groundhog cousin to Punxsutawney Phil who was to have forecasted spring in New Jersey, died Tuesday on the eve of his big day. Photo by Patti Sapone via NJ.com |
I don't want to deny anybody their fun, however weird it is, but I just don't understand the hype of today, Groundhog Day.
A few people disagree with me, but I insist on relying upon outfits like NOAA's Climate Prediction Center to make long range forecasts for how late winter and early spring will go. Nothing against rodents but they are NOT expert meteorologists.
Besides, do we really want to put all this pressure on groundhogs to make all these weather forecasts. Case in point: NJ.com reports the sad news that Milltown Mel, a groundhog who yearly makes predictions from his perch in Millville, New Jersey died Tuesday, on the eve of Groundhog Day.
Though not as famous as the usual go-to groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania, Milltown Mel was a weather forecasting staple in southern New Jersey for year. His death came too late to find a sub to forecast the spring weather so that part of the nation will have to go without this year.
They'll try to find an, um, qualified groundhog this year.
For the record, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning, which means he's predicting six more weeks of winter. As Fox Weather points out, though, Phil is wrong 61 percent of the time.
This isn't the first time the pressures of long range forecasting proved fatal to a groundhog. NJ.com tells us that Stonewall Jackson,a groundhog who did annual February 2 forecasting in Sussex County, New Jersey, died on Groundhog Day Eve 2016.
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