Candlemas was an ancient Christian tradition, when clergy would bless and distribute candles needed for winter. The candles were a representation of how long and cold the winter would be.
The Germans later expanded the concept, by choosing to have the hedgehog represent a means of predicting the weather. But in America when German’s settled in Pennsylvania, the lack of hedgehog caused them to switch to groundhogs as the weather predictors rodent.
Groundhogs (also known as woodchucks or whistle pigs) go into hibernation in the late fall; during this time, their body temperatures drop significantly, their heartbeats slow from 80 to five beats per minute and they can lose 30 percent of their body fat. Then in February, male groundhogs emerge from their burrows to look for a mate (not to predict the weather) before going underground again. They come out of hibernation for good in March.
In February 1887, a newspaper editor looking to sell more papers, also belonged to a group of groundhog hunters from Punxsutawney. They called themselves Punxsutawney Groundhog Club and declared that Phil, the Punxsutawney groundhog, was America’s only true weather-forecasting groundhog. And now we have Groundhog day in America on February 2.