Daily Five: A Little Groundhog Trivia

1.  Today is Thursday, Feb. 2, Groundhog Day. The National Weather Service predicts partly sunny skies, a high temperature of 46 degrees and clouds this evening. The low will fall to 28 degrees tonight. 

2.  Two of the six public meetings on The meetings are open to the public and aimed at hearing concerns and collecting ideas about different topics. 

The topics to be discussed tonight are listed below:

• Academic Programs: 6 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. in the Fitch High School cafeteria.
• Music: 7:30 p.m. until 9 p.m. in the Fitch High School Band Room.

3.  The origins of Groundhog Day, according to groundhog.org, started with the ancient Romans, who brought the notion with them in their conquest of Scotland.

Feb. 2 marked  “Candlemas Day”, the midpoint of winter, halfway between the shortest day of the year and the spring equinox. In ancient times, people celebrated the increased strength of the sun, heralding the coming of spring.

Germans moving into Pennsylvania found groundhogs in abundance. Figuring that the groundhog was an intelligent animal and would understand the Candlemas idea, they began the tradition of using the groundhog to forecast the rest of the winter.

4.  The groundhog is also known as a woodchuck, according to the Farmers' Almanac. It is a type of marmot, a large rodent related to the squirrel. The average groundhog moves about 710 pounds of dirt when digging its burrow. Burrows can be up to 46 feet long and up to 5 feet underground.

5.  According to Stormfax, the groundhog is right in its Groundhog Day predictions 39 percent of the time.