Over the weekend, Punxsutawney Phil, the world's most famous groundhog, forecast a quick end to winter. Legend has it that if the plump, furry rodent emerges from his lair in the Pennsylvania hamlet of Punxatawney on February 2 and sees his shadow, winter will last six more weeks. But this time Phil found a shadow and therefore spring will come early. Phil has several competitors, such as Staten Island Chuck in New York and General Beauregard Lee in Atlanta. The one thing they have in common is that their predictions are wrong more often than not. "The groundhog has shown no talent for predicting the arrival of spring, especially in recent years," the National Climatic Data Center. And according to the StormFax Weather Almanac, Phil's predictions since 1888 have been correct just 39 percent of the time.
But just in case the rodent is right, and winter ends before I exhaust my collection of nude men in the snow, I present for your enjoyment the following photographs. |
| A frozen Cave of the Winds in Niagara Falls, from postcard dated 1911 |
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| Warehouse fire shrouded in ice, January 2013 |
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