Tens of thousands of revelers will descend on Gobbler’s Knob in rural Pennsylvania to witness this year’s prognostication, which will be performed after Phil the groundhog is brought on stage from his nest in a tree stump.

Last year’s announcement was six more weeks of winter, far more common Phil’s assessment and less surprising in the first week of February. His best handlers at the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club insist that Phil’s “groundhogese” of winks, purrs, chatters and nods translate when they relate the meteorological marmot’s musings about the coming days.

Groundhogs are usually solitary creatures that emerge in the middle of winter to find a mate. When Phil is considered unable to see his shadow, it is said to have started in an early spring. When he sees it, there are still six weeks of winter.

It’s the first Groundhog Day for Phil’s new “zoo” at Gobbler’s Knob, where he spends his time when he’s not inside his longtime home next to the town library.

The national popularity of Groundhog Day was supercharged by the 1993 Bill Murray film of the same name. It’s usually a few hours of harmless, early-morning fun — although alcohol is no longer allowed on site after a series of unfortunate incidents.

“We just want to remind people that there are a lot of serious things in this world and this life, and Groundhog Day is not one of them,” said home inspector Dan McGinley, a member of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club’s Inner Circle for about a decade. “We don’t take ourselves seriously, seriously. But seriously, it’s not a serious thing.”

Groundhog Day has also become a marketing juggernaut. Phil was released for an online news conference last week where he and a couple of tuxedo-clad club members asked questions about the event, its history and the planning behind it.

Michael Venos, a 46-year-old database administrator from Roxbury, New Jersey, has been collecting stories of Groundhog Day events and their weather predictions for about a decade. A groundhog that lives in the backyard of his childhood home becomes a kind of unofficial family pet, and Venos is especially inspired by watching the popular movie.

“In addition to the underdog-ness of the holiday. It’s no longer your A-level holiday. So that kind of appeals to me, too,” said Venos, who tallied more than 300 Groundhog Day prognosticators since the 1880s. His own Groundhog Day routine? Venos’ family often makes groundhog cupcakes and she and her daughters hold a divination ceremony in the backyard with a groundhog sock puppet.

Last year alone there were more than 100 weather forecasts, Venos said. Along with many groundhogs, winter predictions are attributed to an armadillo, ostriches, and dwarf goats in Nigeria. Her website lists their memorable names — including Cluxatawney Henrietta (New York), Lucy the Lobster (Nova Scotia), Scramble the Duck (Connecticut) and Snerd (North Carolina).

Members of the Punxsutawney club say there are two types of people who show up at Phil’s place about 80 miles (123 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh — those looking to prove their beliefs and skeptics who want to confirm their own doubts.

Groundhog Day falls on February 2, the halfway point between the shortest, darkest day of the year at the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It is a time of the year that is also numbered in the Celtic calendar and the Christian holiday of Candlemas.

Pennsylvanians of German descent have watched the annual emergence from hibernation of groundhogs for centuries. A culture of clubs and celebrations has grown around the tradition in the US, Canada and beyond.

In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania Germans began celebrating the holiday in the 1880s by picnicking, hunting and eating groundhogs. It’s safe to say that this is a history of which Phil, his “wife” Phyllis and their two puppies, Shadow and Sunny, would certainly prefer to remain ignorant.