It’s a chilly Groundhog Day morning as Georgia’s groundhog, Gen. Beauregard Lee, peeked out of his Jackson house to no shadow in sight.
That means an early spring is predicted.
Here in metro Atlanta, Friday’s morning temps were in the 40s near the city with a few areas in the upper 30s ahead of daybreak. That’s cold, but warmer than Thursday’s start in the 20s and 30s.
While neither Gen. Lee nor Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil saw their shadow this year, the meteorological forecast is calling for at or near-average temperatures for the next three months, Channel 2 Action News meteorologist Brian Monahan said. That means temps will hover around the mid to upper 50s this month. That climbs up into the mid 60s in March and around 70 degrees by the start of April.
The tradition of turning to rodents for weather outlooks is a tradition rooted in European agricultural life, marking the midpoint between the shortest day of the year on the winter solstice and the spring equinox, the Associated Press reported. What the Celts called Imbolc is also around when Christians celebrate Candlemas, timed to Joseph and Mary’s presentation of Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem.