Quantcast

Both Holtsville Hal and Malverne Mel Predict Early Spring on Groundhog Day

groundhog
Holtsville Hal.

The groundhogs agree!

Long Island’s pair of weather-predicting woodchucks did not see their shadows Tuesday, meaning Holtsville Hal and Malverne Mel each forecast an early spring on Groundhog Day, according to local lore.

This year, Hal and Mel also made the same prognostication as New York City’s Staten Island Chuck, Connecticut’s Chuckles and the most famous groundhog of all, Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil.

“Is this current warm weather more than a trend?” Phil’s handlers, dubbed the Inner Circle, told the crowd. “Per chance this winter has come to an end? There is no shadow to be cast, An early Spring is my forecast!”

The news came as little surprise amid the warmer-than-usual winter. LI’s first major snow storm arrived just last week, which meteorologists have said was later than usual.

Hal—who was ominously snowed in last year—and Mel agreed in 2015, when they both saw their shadows, predicting six more weeks of winter, which was also Phil’s forecast. LI’s groundhogs were last in disagreement in 2014.

Not all of the groundhogs in the tri-state area concurred this year. Dunkirk Dave, in an upstate city south of Buffalo, saw his shadow. So did New Jersey’s two groundhogs, Milltown Mel and Essex Ed. The Garden State’s third groundhog, Jackson, died several days ago.

New Call-to-action