Groundhog Day goes virtual in 2021. How to watch Punxsutawney Phil, plus 3 from NC

The world’s prognosticating rodents will offer their forecasts from the safety of their burrows this year, bowing to pandemic risks for the first-ever virtual Groundhog Day.

Here are details:

▪ Punxsutawney Phil, the original and most famous future-teller, gave his lonely prediction from his perch on Gobbler’s Knob, surrounded by top-hatted assistants. But no live crowds will witness his shadow. His broadcast began as the sun rises after 6:30 a.m., visible only on Phil’s Facebook page, You Tube channel and groundhog.org.

Update: Punxsutawney Phil predicts there will be six more weeks of winter, according to The Associated Press. Over 135 years, Phil has predicted winter 106 times and spring 20 times, The Associated Press reports.

▪ In Raleigh, Sir Walter Wally did not make his annual sojourn to the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences. Rather, he raised a paw to the wind from the safety of Roan Mountain State Park in Tennessee. His socially distant appearance was at noon on the museum’s YouTube channel. (www.youtube.com/user/ncnaturalsciences)

Update: Shaking the snow off his coat, Sir Walter Wally forecast an early spring for Raleigh — a risky, offbeat prediction from Raleigh’s honorary groundhog. Details here.

▪ The COVID-19 precautions extend to Garner, where Snerd performs via Facebook from White Deer Park at noon. (www.facebook.com/GarnerParksRecreationAndCulturalResources/)

Update: Snerd the groundhog told Mayor Ken Marshburn to expect another cold six weeks. Details here.

▪ Greta the Chimney Rock groundhog appears live at 10:30 a.m., visible to fans through the state park’s Facebook page. (www.facebook.com/ChimneyRockParkNC)

A personal note

Considered frivolous by many, the holiday holds deep meaning for my family, and it is painful to see it so diminished.

My father’s family comes from a small village outside Punxsutawney — a remote and hardscrabble region of coal mining and railroad work.

My great-grandfather immigrated there from Norway, and every October until recently, the family gathered to slowly cook apple butter in giant copper kettles. Few of us liked apple butter much, but traditions often satisfy a yearning for continuity even when they no longer make much sense. The renovated family home still had an outhouse, and the water from the faucet contained so much sulfur that it was undrinkable, smelling of rotten eggs.

I took my wife, Amber, to one such gathering when we had just started dating, introducing her to Carlino’s, where they serve hamburger meat on hot dog buns, and to Phil himself, who in those days was housed in the public library. You could watch him fritter around his burrow through a large window. Taking all of this in, she admitted, “OK, your family is crazier than mine.”

The groundhog tradition permeated our family so deeply that in 1976 or so my father, then a sixth-grade teacher, wrote a play for his students called “Groundhog Spring,” dressing the cast in hats with corduroy ears. I still have a pair.

A true 2021 mascot

And while I’ve never actually seen Phil in action — school was always in session on Feb. 2 — I believe that all of us carry his spirit. Not just me, but everyone who pays attention to his soothsaying.

For what better mascot could exist in 2021 than a marmot who forces himself out into the cold, peeking over a grim horizon, unafraid of what perils might be lurking there.

Phil, Wally, Snerd and Greta all know we are mired in a global pandemic, and they resist the urge to sleep their way through it.

Whatever trials lie ahead, they emerge to face them.

So should we all.

This story was originally published February 1, 2021 at 11:42 AM.