Groundhog Day 2025 Explained: Will the Groundhog See Its Shadow? Here’s What It Means

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — He’s ready for his close-up.

Staten Island Chuck, New York City’s lone furry prognosticator, is prepped and primed for Groundhog Day on Sunday.

How to watch

If you can’t make it in person to this year’s Groundhog Day celebration at the Zoo, you can catch it on live stream via the Zoo’s website.

Accuracy rate

Though in past years the pair have been at odds, both Chuck and Phil predicted an early spring in 2024. According to local students, Chuck — and yeah, Phil too we guess — was correct in his prediction. Students from Susan E. Wagner High School backed Chuck’s 2024 prediction by analyzing data from their school’s weather station. They tracked temperature readings every day since Chuck’s February prognostication and logged it in a chart. Their findings revealed that the vast majority of days since Chuck’s prediction that year exceeded 40 degrees or significantly higher, thereby validating Chuck’s prediction of an “early spring.”

Students from the school will again track local weather from Feb. 2 to March 20, to see if Chuck’s prediction holds up.

Groundhog Day’s history

The Groundhog Day tradition can be traced to Candlemas, an early Christian holiday where candles were blessed and distributed. Those who celebrated Candlemas decided that clear skies on the holiday meant a longer winter.

The Germans eventually began to believe that if the sun made an appearance on Candlemas Day, a hedgehog would cast a shadow — predicting six more weeks of harsh winter weather. And it was the Germans who brought this belief to the United States.