Only Beau Knows...

The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.  ~Patrick Young

Groundhogs, woodchucks, whistle pigs, mouse bear or land-beaver...all names for the marmot which has become North America's favorite weather creature.  Here in the Southeast we rely on our very own General Beauregard Lee (aka "Beau") to tell us if it will be an early spring or if we are in for six more weeks of winter.

Beau has been recognized for his public service to Americans by four Georgia Governors; and has twice been commended for the accuracy of his predictions by The National Weather Service. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Georgia "DWP, Doctor of Weather Prognostication" and Georgia State University "Doctor of Southern Groundology".

Beau resides in a lavish white-columned southern mansion at the Yellow River Ranch in Atlanta with 600 other inmates. Did you know that groundhogs are one of the few mammals that truly hibernate for the winter? They make burrows below the frost line where temperatures remain stable during the winter months. Groundhogs emerge from hibernation in early February to begin their mating ritual. In fact according to Wildlife Promise this is the practice of males as they rouse themselves to wander around their 2- to 3-acre territories in search of burrows belonging to females, which the males will enter and where they may spend the night. Research suggests that no mating takes place at this time; the visits probably just let the animals get to know one another so that they can get right down to the business of breeding when they emerge for good in March.

In honor of Groundhogs day here are 10 things you may not know about this roly-poly rodent (from Wildlife Promise):

1. Groundhogs are among the few animals that are true hibernators, fattening up in the warm seasons and snoozing for most of three months during the chill times.
2. While hibernating, a woodchuck’s body temperature can drop from about 99 degrees to as low as 37 (Humans go into mild hypothermia when their body temperature drops a mere 3 degrees, lose consciousness at 82 degrees and face death below 70 degrees).
3. The  heart rate of a hibernating woodchuck slows from about 80 beats per minute to 5.
4. Breathing slows from around 16 breaths per minute to as few as 2.
5. During hibernation—150 days without eating—a woodchuck will lose no more than a fourth of its body weight thanks to all the energy saved by the lower metabolism.
6. During warm seasons, a groundhog may pack in more than a pound of vegetation at one sitting, which is much like a 150-pound man scarfing down a 15-pound steak.
7. To accommodate its bodacious appetite, woodchucks grow upper and lower incisors that can withstand wear and tear because they grow about a sixteenth of an inch each week.
8. If properly aligned, woodchuck upper and lower incisors grind away at each other with every bite, keeping suitably short; when not in good order, they may miss one another and just keep growing until they look like the tusks on a wild boar; if too long, a woodchuck’s upper incisors can impale the lower jaw, with fatal results.
9. Woodchuck burrows, which the animals dig as much as 6 feet deep, can meander underground for 20 feet or more, usually with two entrances but in some cases with nearly a dozen.
10. Burrows provide groundhogs with their chief means of evading enemies, because the rotund little guys (just before hibernation, a hefty woodchuck may tip the scales at 14 pounds) are too slow to escape most predators in a dead heat: the rodents have a top speed of only 8 mph, while a hungry fox may hit 25 mph.

So what are your predictions? 

Will it be an early spring?

or are we in for a longer winter?