Groundhog Day, when those giant rodents emerge to look for their shadows, seems completely irrelevant to the science of the sky. After all, why should marmot anxieties correlate with an early spring? And what happens if some but not all groundhogs see their shadows--a likely dilemma given their wide habitat range? Do they split the difference? Three more weeks of winter instead of six?
There’s plenty of room for scientific discomfort in this whole woodchuck deal, but things look up when you burrow deeper. For starters, the February 2 date isn’t as arbitrary as it may seem.
The week of February 2 marks the astronomical midpoint of winter. Sitting halfway between the December solstice and the spring equinox, February 2 is also the date of Candlemas, the fortieth day of Christmas, first celebrated by the Byzantines some 1,500 years ago. It’s one of the cross quarter days that marked the ...
