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Tuesday
February 2, 2004 is Candlemas Day - and Groundhog Day in the US.
According
to an old saying:
If Candlemas be fair and bright
Winter will have another flight
If Candlemas brings cloud and rain
Winter is gone and won't come again
The
implication is that if the February 2 is a fine day then winter
will return. But if it is a wet day, then winter will be at an end.
To
wave goodbye to winter at the beginning of February seems foolhardy
to say the least and there is no evidence to back it up.
Interestingly,
the Americans have a similar piece of weather lore on the same day,
tied up with Groundhog Day.
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| Groundhog
Day is now known worldwide through the film of the same name
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This
is familiar to many of us from the 1993 movie of the same name,
starring Bill Murray and Andie McDowell.
Tradition
has it that the early German settlers in Pennsylvania thought the
groundhog to be a particularly sensitive and intelligent creature.
They
decided that if the sun shone on Candlemas Day then a wise animal
such as the groundhog would see its own shadow and hurry back to
its burrow for another six weeks of winter.
The
event has taken place in the quaintly named Gobbler's Knob, Punxsutawney
for over a century.
Since
the film appeared with Bill Murray playing a weatherman doomed to
relive Groundhog Day over and over, interest in the event has exploded.
Crowds
now exceed 30,000 and the groundhog itself, Punxsutawney Phil, has
even appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
This
year Punxsatawney Phil did indeed see his shadow on the ground,
thereby predicting that the bad winter weather currently gripping
much of the eastern United States will continue for another six
weeks.
If
you would like to comment on this or any other story in this section get in
touch at gloucestershire@bbc.co.uk |
Will
winter linger? Candlemas and the US Groundhog Day both have weather
lore associated with them - as weatherman Richard Angwin explains.
Known
as the Festival of Lights, Candlemas has been celebrated
for hundreds of years.
