![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pennpacket.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/phil17.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe following proclamation was read on Gobbler’s Nob: \u00a0Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye…Now, this Second Day of February, Two Thousand and Seventeen, the One Hundred and Thirty First \u00a0Annual Trek of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. \u00a0Punxsutawney Phil, the Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of All Prognosticators, was awakened from his burrow to the cheers of his thousands of faithful followers. \u00a0In Groundhogese, he directed the President and the Inner Circle to his prediction Scroll, which reads:<\/p>\n
At Gobbler\u2019s Knob on Groundhog Day
\n<\/b>We celebrate a world-wide Holiday
\n<\/b>It\u2019s mighty cold weather, you\u2019ve been braving
\n<\/b>Is it more winter or is it spring that you\u2019re craving?
\n<\/b>Since you\u2019ve been up all night and starting to tottle
\n<\/b>I, Punxsutawney Phil, shall not dawdle
\n<\/b>My faithful followers, I could clearly see
\n<\/b>A beautiful, perfect shadow of me
\n<\/b>Six more Weeks of Winter, it shall be!<\/b><\/p>\n
\n
According to holiday folklore, if the groundhog emerges in the early morning on February 2 and sees his shadow, six more weeks of wintry weather are expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach February, the eyes of the world turn to Punxsutawney, a town of just 5,500 residents, that represents the charm and history of so many of our small towns across Pennsylvania,\u201d said Governor Tom Wolf. \u201cIn addition to Punxsutawney\u2019s quirky appeal, this event spurs a tourism boost, adding $1 million to the region\u2019s economy annually. Through this event, the local economy is stimulated significantly with vendors and shops experiencing increased sales and hotels lodging, restaurants, and other businesses in the hospitality industry accommodating high numbers of patrons.\u201d<\/p>\n
Groundhog Day, a popular tradition in the United States, has a long history<\/a>, crossing centuries and different ethnic cultures. More recently, the annual Pennsylvania event that started with a small group of men known as the Inner Circle now attracts up to 30,000 visitors to Punxsutawney, Jefferson County, about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is an honor to help share Punxsutawney Phil\u2019s prognostication with the world,\u201d said Groundhog Club Inner Circle President Bill Deeley. \u201cFor more than 130 years, Punxsutawney Phil has been the only true weather forecasting groundhog and he\u2019s right 100 percent of the time, of course!\u201d<\/p>\n Phil\u2019s prediction is broadcast each year on visitPA.com which results in the largest single day of traffic to the website. In 2016, the website received more than 287,000 page views, a new record which is expected to be broken this year.<\/p>\n \u201cGroundhog Day is a great way to introduce children to the excitement of weather forecasting,\u201d said Janice Dean, Fox News meteorologist and the 2017 inductee into the Punxsutawney Weather Discovery Center\u2019s Meteorologist Hall of Fame. \u201cI hope the enthusiasm surrounding this morning\u2019s prognostication inspires a future generation of meteorologists.\u201d<\/p>\n Follow Visit PA on Twitter<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a> to discover winter activities over the next six weeks with fun facts and photos using the hashtag #SixMoreWeeks. Travelers are encouraged to share what makes them happy in the winter using #PAHappySnaps.<\/p>\n The Pennsylvania Tourism Office, under the Department of Community and Economic Development, is dedicated to inspiring travel to\u00a0Pennsylvania. For more information, go to\u00a0visitPA.com<\/a> or sign up for our Happy Thoughts newsletter<\/a>, become a fan at\u00a0facebook.com\/visitPA<\/a>, follow us at\u00a0twitter.com\/visitPA<\/a>, check out photos at instagram.com\/visit_pa<\/a>, share pins at\u00a0pinterest.com\/visitPA<\/a>, or watch us on\u00a0youtube.com\/visitPA<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Punxsutawney, PA…Pennsylvania\u2019s world-famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, predicted six more weeks of winter after seeing his shadow this morning in the Pennsylvania Wilds. Thousands of fans watched as Phil made his highly-anticipated weather prognostication, commemorating 131 years of Pennsylvania\u2019s unique Groundhog Day tradition. The following proclamation was read on Gobbler’s Nob: \u00a0Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-life-style","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/phil17.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}