Candlemas Day
Our Groundhog Day evolved from an earlier tradition called Candlemas Day, when candles were blessed. It probably came from an ancient Roman practice.
According to an old English song:
If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Come, Winter, have another flight;
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Go Winter, and come not again.
According to an old Scotch couplet:
If Candlemas Day is bright and clear,
There'll be twa (two) winters in the year.
Another variation of the Scottish rhyme:
If Candlemas day be dry and fair,
The half o' winter to come and mair,
If Candlemas day be wet and foul,
The half of winter's gone at Yule.
German people would consult a hedgehog (or I've sometimes heard, a badger) to see if it would cast a shadow on this day. When they emigrated to America, hedgehogs were in short supply, so they resorted to groundhogs, and now we have Groundhog Day.
It's snowing again. Maybe if we had consulted a hedgehog we would get better, more authentic results. You can't send a groundhog to do a hedgehog's job, I always say.