Georgia Groundhog Day 2024 General Beauregard Lee livestream

JACKSON, Ga. – Should you get ready to bundle up for more weeks or winter or be excited for early spring? General Beauregard “Beau” Lee, Georgia’s famous groundhog, is set to make his big forecast.

On Friday morning, Feb. 2, officials at the Dauset Trails Nature Center in Jackson will pull Beau out of his miniature mansion and announce whether he saw his shadow.

Beau’s ancestors began predicting seasons on Groundhog Day in 1981. He moved to the nature center from the Yellow River Wildlife Sanctuary in Gwinnett County after the ranch suddenly closed in 2017.

The nature center’s main gate will open by 6 a.m. with the groundhog expected to make his prediction around 7:30 a.m. after a short ceremony.

FOX 5 will stream the prediction live on FOX5Atlanta.com and on YouTube.

Gen. Beauregard Lee (Daucet Trails Nature Center)

History of Groundhog Day

Celtic people across Europe marked the four days that are midway between the winter solstice, the spring equinox, the summer solstice and the fall equinox. 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.

Ancient people would watch the sun, stars and animal behavior to guide farming practices and other decisions, and the practice of watching an animal’s emergence from winter hibernation to forecast weather has roots in a similar German tradition involving badgers or bears. Pennsylvania Germans apparently substituted the groundhog, endemic to the eastern and midwestern United States.

Historians have found a reference in an 1841 diary to groundhog weather forecasts in early February among families of German descent in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, according to the late Don Yoder, a University of Pennsylvania professor whose 2003 book about Groundhog Day explored the Celtic connection.

Yoder concluded the festival has roots in “ancient, undoubtedly prehistoric, weather lore.”

The celebration of Groundhog Day in the United States began with Pennsylvania’s earliest settlers, according to the groundhog club. They brought with them the legend of Candlemas Day, which states, “For as the sun shines on Candlemas Day, so far will the snow swirl in May…,” the club notes on its website.

The ancient Christian tradition of Candlemas included clergy blessing and distributing candles needed for winter. The candles represented how long and cold the winter would be, History.com notes. Germans expanded on this by selecting an animal — the hedgehog — as a means of predicting the weather.

“Once they came to America, German settlers in Pennsylvania continued the tradition, although they switched from hedgehogs to groundhogs, which were plentiful in the Keystone State,” the outlet writes.

Punxsutawney held its first Groundhog Day in the 1800s. The first official trek to Gobbler’s Knob — a tiny hill just outside of the town — wasn’t made until Feb. 2, 1887. That year, Phil saw his shadow.

His first prediction of six more weeks of winter was accurate for a few regions, but it came up short for several others, according to the NOAA.

Will General Beauregard Lee and Punxsutawney Phil get it right this year?

Some well-meaning efforts have sought to determine the groundhogs’ accuracy, but what “six weeks of winter” means is debatable. Claims that a groundhog has or has not seen its shadow — and that it’s able to communicate that to a human — are also fair territory for skeptics and the humor impaired.

By all accounts, Punxsutawney Phil predicts more winter far more often than he predicts an early spring. Unlike Phil, Georgia’s groundhogs have only predicted a longer winter three times in the last 33 years. The last time a long winter was predicted was in 2019.

Groundhogs are mostly solitary creatures who start to emerge in midwinter to find a mate. The science behind whether they can make any accurate weather predictions is problematic at best.

Among the skeptics is the National Centers for Environmental Information, within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The government agency last year compared Phil’s record with U.S. national temperatures over the prior decade and concluded he was right only 40% of the time.

And according to PolitiFact in 2011Lee has a better track record than Phil – with 60% accuracy compared to his Pennsylvania counterparts.

“Georgia’s underhog is the champion, paws down,” PolitFact wrote.

What do the weather models say for 2024’s spring?

While the groundhogs will speak on Friday, FOX 5 chief meteorologist David Chandley says Meteorological Spring is expected to arrive on March 1st. Astronomical Spring – aka what’s on the calendar – comes on Tuesday, March 19 at 11 p.m.  That is the moment the earth’s equator will be in a direct line with the sun. It is early this year because of the leap year day of Feb. 29.

As far as whether spring-like weather will be here early? Chandley does think the coldest air of the season is behind us, but that doesn’t mean that a few cold snaps will not arrive in the next two months.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.