By Vicki Li ’18, Staff Writer

This February, crowds of up to 40,000 people will gather outside in the cold winter to watch an event. Even more will watch from the comfort of their own homes on television. It isn’t for a Valentine’s Day celebration or even a Chinese New Year festival – it’s all to see a very confused groundhog, bearing an identical name of all of its predecessors, pop out of its burrow. On Groundhog Day, a groundhog comes out of the ground and either sees its shadow or does not. If it does, winter will persist for another six weeks. If it doesn’t,  the arrival of spring will come shortly. In the end, it doesn’t matter if the groundhog sees its shadow; it doesn’t even matter that it’s a groundhog doing the predicting. It’s the weather on Groundhog Day that determines this sacred prediction. If the day is sunny, then the groundhog will see its shadow. If there’s no sun, there’s no shadow.

In fact, there isn’t just one groundhog that determines this; there are multiple around the U.S., whose names range from “T-Boy the Nutria” to “Nibbles.” Groundhog  Day is an occasion serious enough to sometimes produce disputed outcomes.  It’s an event that could happen in the span of about ten minutes, but instead it gets an annual holiday, a movie, and a musical.

Groundhog Day began in the state of Pennsylvania in 1887. One day, Clymer H. Freas, the editor of the Punxsutawney Spirit, decided to start promoting a groundhog as the town’s meteorologist. More than two people bought into his idea, and thus Groundhog Day was born.

On February 2^nd, nothing out of the ordinary will happen in the NA community. You might fail a test, or maybe ace a presentation. It will be known as a Day 4 on a Thursday. Groundhogs will probably never cross your mind.

As an intellectual community, Newark Academy students have a hard time putting their faith in a groundhog to determine the changing of seasons. However, they were more than happy to analyze the significance it had to other people. Aislin Black ’17 said, “Even though I personally don’t think it’s accurate, it gives hope or dread to the people in future weeks, and really just gives them something to believe in.” Sophia Figueroa ’20 agreed with Aislin about the veracity of Groundhog Day, but had a different response to its significance. “I don’t believe Groundhog Day is that meaningful; it’s important because groundhogs are cute,” she said. Even though it’s highly unlikely for us students to be united by the joy of watching a furry creature crawl out of a hole, Groundhog Day still holds some merit to some people.

Does the groundhog’s prediction really affect Newark Academy? Probably not. Last year, the nearest groundhog from NA, ingeniously named Durkik Dave (located in Durkik, New York), saw its shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter. About a month after his wonderful prediction, the temperature in Livingston measured in at 80 degrees. March of 2016 turned out to be the one of the most abnormally warm months on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Nevertheless, Groundhog Day is, as Sophia put it, a great day to see some cute, fuzzy animals.