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Ephemeris: 02/02/2026 – Groundhog Day’s significance

February 2, 2026 Comments off

This is Ephemeris for Ground Hog Day, Monday, February 2nd. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 52 minutes, setting at 5:53, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:59. The Moon, 1 day past full, will rise at 7:00 this evening.

I don’t know if Punxsutawney Phil will see his shadow this morning or not, but February 2nd was a special day to the ancients. It is also Candlemas day for the Catholic Church, and celebrated as a cross-quarter day, the middle of the season of Winter. Though the exact date of the middle of winter is the 4th. And if Phil sees his shadow, and we do get 6 more weeks of winters, that’s OK too. By the calendar it’s actually more like 7 weeks to the vernal or spring equinox and the official end of winter. Of the other cross-quarter days, two stand out today. They’re May 1st, May Day, and Halloween, October 31st. As far as winter goes, we’ve had lots of snow, and some extremely cold temperatures a couple of weeks ago.

The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EST, UT – 5 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum

I'm no artist, so I asked AI to draw my Groundhog Day cartoon.
I’m no artist, so I asked AI to draw a Groundhog Day cartoon. Last year I had Microsoft’s Copilot do it, this year I asked Google’s Gemini. While I asked for a whimsical cartoon, I didn’t really mean that the shadow that the Groundhog cast was the direction of the sun and not away from it, among other things. Gemini got the nightcap I asked for correct. Copilot gave me a knit winter cap instead. The nightshirt is a nice touch. Next year I will enlist one of the other AI’s artistic skill.

Categories: Ephemeris Program, Folklore, Seasons Tags: ,