The spotlight is on Phil every year on Groundhog Day – a tradition celebrated in the US and Canada which attracts tens of thousands of people.

It is thought to have evolved from German celebrations of Candlemas on 2 February. Known as Dachstag, or Badger Day, it was believed that if a badger refused to emerge from its home, locals were in for four more weeks of snow.

As the German-speaking Pennsylvania Dutch settled in America, the tradition moved stateside with a groundhog replacing the badger.

The first official Groundhog Day took place in 1887 in Punxsutawney.

The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, the group behind the event, has an “inner circle” of 15 people wearing top hats and bowties who are responsible for taking care of Phil and protecting “the legend of the great weather-predicting groundhog”.

They claim – in a light-hearted way – that the same groundhog has been predicting the weather at Gobbler’s Knob for more than100 years.

An “elixir of life” made from a “secret recipe” is given to the groundhog every summer which is what gives Phil his “longevity and youthful good looks”, it says on the club’s website.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission says the potential lifespan of a groundhog is estimated at eight or nine years.

Last year, Phil “predicted” an early spring after he did not see his shadow on Groundhog Day.

But the reliability of America’s most celebrated rodent weather forecaster has been called into question.

Phil was right 30% of the time between 2014 and 2023, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said, according to BBC’s US partner CBS.

The event was further popularised by the 1993 film Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.