Groundhog Club handler John Griffiths holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather predicting groundhog, during the annual celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney in 2016. The handlers of Pennsylvania's most famous groundhog announced early Saturday morning that Phil did not see his shadow, predicting an early spring.

You can call it a groundhog or a woodchuck or a whistle-pig or even a land-beaver.

Folklore states if a groundhog sees its shadow on Feb. 2, winter will continue for another six weeks.

But Saturday, Punxsutawney Phil broke with tradition and did not see his shadow, predicting an early spring. The event is so rare that it has happened only 19 times in the 133-year history of Groundhog Day.

Phil draw thousands of people out in the middle of a frigid winter night in the middle of Pennsylvania because of a mythical connection between his shadow and the length of winter.

That annual ritual was re-enacted again this weekend when the Inner Circle climbed Gobbler's Knob and put Phil in the national spotlight.

Terry Wills, the game warden supervisor for the Pennsylvania Game Commission's Northwest Region that contains 10 counties including Butler, said groundhogs like Phil are as common as dirt in these parts.

But Phil is a most uncommon woodchuck, counters Katie Donald, the executive director of the Groundhog Club of Punxsutawney, a nonprofit group whose 15 board members form the Inner Circle that interprets Phil's prophecies.

Donald claims Phil is 133 years old and is the original animal from the inaugural Groundhog's Day ceremony in 1886.

“Phil has a burrow in the Punxsutawney Library the rest of the year,” Donald said. “At an undisclosed time, the Inner Circle will take him to Gobbler's Knob.”

Gobbler's Knob, a little clearing at the top of a wooded hill, is owned by the Groundhog Club.

“Gobbler's Knob is outside of town about a mile and a half,” Donald said. “There's a stage and everything. We are in the process of constructing a visitor's center.”

It would come in handy this Groundhog's Day because Donald said the crowd which started to gather at 3 a.m. to hear Phil's prophecy was expected to reach 25,000. The population of Punxsutawney is 5,500.

This is an excerpt — pick up Sunday's Butler Eagle or subscribe to butlereagle.com to find out how groundhogs became associated with weather predictions.