Every year on Groundhog’s Day I feel as if more and more critters crawl up from the Earth to offer their portents of prolonged winter. And every year we look backwards with the fullness of meteorological observations to evaluate the accuracy of these armchair—armburrow?—forecasters.
This year, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s required article on the matter included a table wherein the famous Punxsutawney Phil’s recent run of wrong reads on the weather were made clear.
But I remembered seeing a similar story long ago and I found perhaps the original article, but now updated, where the accuracy of not just Phil but other similarly seers of rodentia fall in the pantheon of prognostication on the probability of premature spring. Naturally I wanted to see the table visualised so here we are.
Should this have been a Friday post?
Credit for the table goes to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Credit for the datagraphic is mine.