Groundhog Puxatawney Phil 'wanted for deception' after spring fails to arrive

Criminal has 'brown and grey hair, brown eyes, sharp teeth', says sheriff's poster

Punxsutawney Phil is held up by his handler for the crowd to see during the ceremonies for Groundhog day on February 2, 2018 in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania (Brett Carlsen/Getty Images)

A sheriff in Pennsylvania has put up a wanted poster for a rodent after it failed to predict the weather correctly.

Pennsylvanians look to a groundhog called Punxsutawney Phil every 2 February to forecast how much longer winter will last. The tradition has been carried out in Pennsylvania for 132 years.

The woodchuck’s handlers this year said it saw its shadow, which meant there would be six more weeks of winter, according to tradition.

But the 13 April deadline passed last week, just before the northeastern US states were battered by a major storm.

Police corporal Scott Martin told local news broadcaster WBRE-TV he created the poster and placed it on the “wanted wall” because he was tired of snow in the spring.

The poster claims Phil is wanted for deception, describing the animal as having “brown and grey hair, brown eyes, sharp teeth”.

No arrests had been made on Friday afternoon. It was unclear whether the rodent had gone to ground.

Records dating to 1887 show a Pennsylvania groundhog has predicted winter 103 times, while forecasting an early spring just 18 times. The prediction is often wrong.

After Phil saw his shadow last year, both February and March ended up warmer than average across the country, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

NOAA found that the Pennsylvania groundhog had been right 14 times and wrong 16 times since 1988.

“There is no predictive skill for the groundhog during the most recent years of the analysis,” NOAA said in a report this year.

Using a rodent to predict the weather started as a tradition in Europe on an early Christian holiday called Candlemas.

Germans who settled in Pennsylvania in the 1700s brought the custom to North America. The tradition has since been immortalised by the eponymous 1993 film, Groundhog Day.

Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil is the most well-known groundhog, but several states across the US, including Georgia and Ohio, celebrate 2 February with groundhogs named General Beauregard Lee and Buckeye Chuck.