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The Groundhog Says We're Due for More Winter but Maybe It's Fake News

Who can you trust these days?
Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

On Thursday morning, Pennsylvania rodent and weather oracle Punxsutawney Phil popped his head out of his hole and caught a glimpse of his shadow, signaling another six weeks of winter, ABC 6 reports.

Phil (or various groundhogs named Phil, since woodchucks only live about a decade) has been using his shadow to divine the end of winter since at least 1887. More often than not, Phil sees his shadow—it's pretty rare for him to call for an early spring. Records dating back to the 19th century show that Phil predicted six more weeks of winter more than a hundred times, but blessed us with an early spring on only 18 occasions.

Punxsutawney's resident weather creature apparently thinks that spring temperatures won't roll around this year until the middle of March, so we're stuck in this frigid icescape a little longer.

Or are we? Could this whole thing just be another example of the ever-pervasive fake news that has crept like English Ivy to smother the façade of our democracy? Could Phil actually be in bed with the road salt lobby, trying to coax consumers into preparing for another month of snow that may never actually come? Only time will tell.