While Punxsutawney Phil gets much of the nationalGroundhog Dayspotlight, many of his weather-forecasting animal counterparts have proven much more accurate with their predictions.
Though Phil hails from Pennsylvania, other popular groundhog forecasters includeBuckeye Chuckin Ohio,General Beauregard Leein Georgia andStaten Island Chuckin New York, among dozens of others.
Across the U.S. and Canada, where Groundhog Day is primarily celebrated, there are 88 weather-forecasting groundhogs in total, according togroundhog-day.com, which bills itself as the leading data source for the holiday that falls on Feb. 2.
Some of those include"alternative" groundhogs, which the site says includes other species, taxidermized groundhogs, plush stuffed animals or people in costume.
In 2025, theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationranked the accuracy of some of these groundhogs, and the results showed many outranked Punxsutawney Phil.
How accurate is Punxsutawney Phil?
NOAA graded and ranked each groundhog based on their accuracy using the March temperature averages for the U.S. each year from 2005 to 2024.
According to NOAA's data, Punxsutawney Phil's early spring/longer winter forecasts were accurate just 35% of the time.
Which groundhogs are most accurate? See list
Aside from Phil, NOAA ranked 19 annual groundhog prognosticators with the criteria that they must have been forecasting for at least 20 years as of February 2024.
Here's a look at the results:
Staten Island Chuck - 85%
General Beauregard Lee - 80%
Lander Lil - 75%
Concord Charlie - 65%
Gertie the Groundhog - 65%
Jimmy the Groundhog - 60%
Woodstock Willie - 60%
Buckeye Chuck - 55%
French Creek Freddie - 55%
Malverne Mel - 55%
Octoraro Orphie –- 52.63%
Dunkirk Dave - 50%
Holtsville Hal - 50%
Poor Richard - 50%
Uni the Groundhog - 47.37%
Schnogadahl Sammi - 38.89%
Punxsutawney Phil - 35%
Woody the Woodchuck - 35%
Mojave Max - 25%
Melina Khan is a national trending reporter for USA TODAY. She can be reached atmelina.khan@usatoday.com.
(This story was updated to add a video.)
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Which groundhog forecasters are most accurate? Phil isn't top.
