What a trooper our hairy friend Phil, he showed his face and the prediction was made ...

The world's most famous rodent prognosticator, Punxsutawney Phil, arose today and his handlers revealed he had not seen his shadow - meaning an early spring for the winter-weary, reports the Associated Press.

Everyone knows about Phil, but did you know there is a rival rodent in New York? Staten Island Chuck, assisted by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, also forecast an early end to what has become a brutal winter, reports Staten Island Live.

USA TODAY's weather guy, Doyle Rice, revealed that Phil's record isn't exactly foolproof.

“Based on an analysis of recent weather data, "there is no predictive skill for the groundhog during the most recent years of the analysis," according to the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

The center found that since 1988, the groundhog was "right" 10 times and "wrong" 13 times. In other words, only 10 times did the national average temperature for the remainder of February match what would be expected based on what the groundhog had predicted.”

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