City Council Speaker Christine Quinn with Staten Island Chuck during the annual Groundhog Day ceremony at the Staten Island Zoo. (Chad Rachman/New York Post)
It’s spring — beyond a shadow of a doubt!
Staten Island Chuck, the borough’s furry predictor of long winters and early springs, didn’t see his shadow this morning at the Staten Island Zoo — signaling an early thaw.
“He didn’t equivocate at all as a prognosticator,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who subbed for Mayor Bloomberg at the Groundhog Day ceremony. “He was clear that it was going to be spring early, and he did not try to take a bite at all.”
Quinn donned industrial strength gloves out of respect for Chuck’s penchant for biting politicians. The critter bit Bloomberg during the 2009 ceremony.
“The gloves are recommended by Mayor Bloomberg,” quipped Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro.
Quinn, who’s running for mayor this year, joshed with reporters about Bloomberg’s absence.
“I think Chuck got a pretty good deal getting to be with me this morning,” she said. “What more could he want than a cute red head first thing in the morning and that’s what he got.”
When it comes to predicting when spring will come in the time honored groundhog way, Staten Island Chuck has a success rate of 80 percent, Quinn said.
Punxsutawney Phil, that other famous groundhog who lives in Pennsylvania, has a dismal rate of under 40 percent.
But today the two rodents could agree on something: Phil didn’t see his shadow either.
Legend has it that if Phil sees his shadow on Feb. 2 on Gobbler’s Knob in west-central Pennsylvania, winter will last six more weeks. But if he doesn’t see his shadow, spring will come early.
Phil’s prediction is made during a ceremony overseen by a group called the Inner Circle. Members don top hats and tuxedos for the ceremony on Groundhog Day each year.
Bill Deeley, president of the Inner Circle, says that after “consulting” with Phil, he makes the call in deciphering what the world’s Punxsutawney Phil has to say about the weather.
Phil is known as the “seer of seers” and “sage of sages.” Organizers predicted about 20,000 people this weekend, a larger-than-normal crowd because Groundhog Day falls on a weekend this year.
Phil’s got more company in the forecasting department. In addition to Staten Island Chuck, there’s General Beauregard Lee, in Atlanta, and Wiarton Willie, in Wiarton, Ontario, among others noted by the National Climactic Data Center “Groundhog Day” Web page.
“Punxsutawney can’t keep something this big to itself,” the Data Center said. “Other prognosticating rodents are popping up to claim a piece of the action.”
Phil is the original — and the best, Punxsutawney partisans insist.
The 1993 movie “Groundhog Day” starring Bill Murray brought even more notoriety to the Pennsylvania party. The record attendance was about 30,000 the year after the movie’s release, said Katie Donald, executive director of the Groundhog Club. About 13,000 attend if Feb. 2 falls on a weekday.
Phil’s predictions, of course, are not always right on. Last year, for example, he told people to prepare for six more weeks of winter, a minority opinion among his groundhog brethren. The Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University later listed that January to June as the warmest seven-month period since systematic records began being kept in 1895.
“We’ll just mark it up as a mistake last year. He’ll be correct this year,” McKown said hopefully.
With AP