Quebec Groundhog Found Dead. What Does THAT Mean For The Rest Of Winter?

Fred la marmotte, seen here in 2018 was Quebec's 
answer to the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil. Fred
was found dead Thursday morning before he could
make his prediction, so what does that mean?

 Yes, yes, I know, the silly traditional Groundhog Day we had today is not scientific.

Supposedly, if the groundhog sees his shadow, we'll need to endure six more weeks of winter. The most famous one, Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania, saw his shadow on Thursday, supposedly meaning spring is a far away dream. 

Never mind the output from meteorologists lately that suggest a possible early end to winter. I see NOAA's latest 8 to 14 day forecast, for what it's worth, predicts warmer than normal weather through mid-February.

Longer range forecasts also call for a warm February overall. NOAA also slightly favors a warmer than normal spring in the Northeast, too.

I don't entire trust these long range forecasts. A lot can go wrong. However, I'm quite sure the scientists at NOAA are much better at weather forecasting than some random rodent. Sorry Phil!

Which leads me to some tragic news from Quebec.  

The Canadian province's answer to Punxsutawney Phil, named Fred la marmotte, in Val-d'Espoir, Quebec, was found dead just before he was scheduled to come out of his burrow to predict how late winter would go. 

Perhaps Fred had heard that the Polar Vortex was about to settle into Quebec,  leading to an intense, but brief Arctic cold snap. 

But Yikes! What kind of prediction to you get when a groundhog is found dead? Sounds like the apocalypse. 

Death seems drastic, after all. Will the next six weeks be worse than just cold, or hazy, hot and humid, like summer?  Does this mean unprecedented storms?  Thirty feet of snow in a week? Something like the Great Quebec ice storm of 1998? Locusts? Noah's flood?

We don't know the cause of Fred's death, but it appears to be from natural causes. Maybe Fred was just depressed because his meteorological knowledge was not as great as, you know, real meteorologists.

Event organizers in Quebec figured Fred would have wanted a child to take his place if he had died  So a child was selected from the crowd on Thursday. For the record, that child, wearing a groundhog hat, predicted six more weeks of winter.

The kid was probably just hoping for more snow days that would close schools. So he could go to the sledding hill behind the school instead of hitting the books. 

For next year, we're told that Fred's son will take over the Groundhog Day leading role. It's a family business. Fred took over for his father several years ago when his dad died.