Groundhog Day used to be February 1st – and it actually goes back thousands of years. It all started with the ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc - which was celebrated halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. That festival featured primitive meteorology in hopes of predicting how soon the spring would arrive – and any shadows would do.
The groundhog didn’t really come into play until Germans settled in Pennsylvania. They would predict the end of winter based on bears’ and badgers’ hibernation habits – but local Punxsutawney groundhogs were much easier to find and soon stole the spot light.
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