Groundhog Phil predicts extended winter

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. -- Six more weeks of winter. No Super Bowl pick. Punxsutawney Phil left his cozy tree stump for this?

The furry forecaster sent groans through a record crowd of 40,000 humans as they shivered in the subfreezing temperatures early Saturday outside the groundhog's home on Gobbler's Knob.

"I'm going back to California," said Marty Blackburn, visiting on vacation.

His niece, Cindy Narr, of Fulton, Md., had been trying to send the famous groundhog warm vibes all morning: "C'mon Phil, I wanted it to be warm!"

No such luck.

Continuing a more than a century-old tradition, at sunrise Saturday, Bill Cooper, president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club Inner Circle, knocked on the door of Phil's tree-stump home. Bill Deeley, Phil's handler, retrieved the groundhog, and members of the Inner Circle gathered around to hear Phil's proclamation.

German superstition holds that if an animal sees its shadow on Feb. 2 -- the Christian holiday of Candlemas -- then bad weather is in store.

Members of the Inner Circle say Phil reveals his winter forecast by telling them which of two scrolls to read. This year's scroll wasn't what the vast majority of visitors, who had just come through a week of ice storms, had hoped to hear.

As for those hoping for a little of that promised Super Bowl luck, they struck out altogether: No pick from Phil.

"I think he was indifferent," Cooper said. "What can I say? He's only a groundhog."

Phil might have lost interest after both the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles lost their respective conference championship games, leaving the St. Louis Rams facing the New England Patriots in Sunday's game in New Orleans.

Phil also might have had more important things on his mind.

"They're not interested in the game right now. They're going to mate," said Stam Zervanos, associate professor of biology at Penn State University's Berks-Lehigh Valley College in Reading.