It's Groundhog Day in Chicago: Will Stormy See Her Shadow?

I have no trouble remembering today's date, as it is my wedding anniversary. Yes, dear reader, my wife and I were married by a Cook County Marriage Court judge on Groundhog Day. We celebrate the day by watching the local Groundhog Day festivities.

Punxatawny Phil is arguably the most famous American groundhog. No, he isn't local; he lives in Punxsutawney. Pennsylvania, and he even has his own fan club. Every year at this time, there is a ceremony held in Punxsutawney, for the express purpose of asking him for his weather prognosis. If Phil sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. (Never mind that this is true, whether or not a given groundhog sees his or her shadow!) If he does not, then one can expect an almost immediate advent of warm weather and other signs of spring.

We in the Chicago area have two zoos, Lincoln Park and Brookfield. There are two resident groundhogs in Chicago, named Stormy and Cloudy (due to the legend which suggests that groundhogs can predict the weather this time of year). Both of them live at Brookfield, in the children's zoo area. (One ordinarily has to pay a special admission fee to get into this section of the zoo, in addition to the admission and parking fees one is charged upon entrance to the zoo.)

The Brookfield Zoo website does not specify whether Stormy or Cloudy will be assigned the task of forecasting the time when the seasons will change - just that one of them will do so on February 2. 2008, at 10:30 in the morning, Central Standard Time, in the Children's Zoo. They are both females, so the groundhog doing weatherman duty will be lured out of her nest with a carrot, then asked whether or not she sees her shadow. The powers that be have scheduled a parade immediately after the prognostication has been made, in another area of the children's zoo. (Since there are no prairie dogs in either zoo's collection, to my knowledge, there will be no ceremonies determining whether or not they saw their shadows.)