STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — There’s a well-known weather prognosticator in New York City’s quietest borough, and this rodent’s accuracy is proof that there’s more to predicting the arrival of spring than meteorology.

Staten Island Chuck, (a.k.a. Charles G. Hogg) is a groundhog who calls the Staten Island Zoo in West Brighton his home, and he has an excellent record when it comes to predicting whether we’ll experience an early spring or six more weeks of winter.

He does this by looking for his shadow when emerging from a hollow log inside the zoo enclosure he calls home. A visible shadow means six more weeks of winter. No shadow: Early spring.

Including last year’s early spring forecast, confirmed by research done by Susan E. Wagner High School students and warm March temperatures, Chuck’s extended predictions have been accurate for the last 16 years.

He was last “officially” wrong in 2009. That’s the year he bit former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Unofficially, in 2017, students at PS 45 who tracked Chuck’s prediction said he was wrong that year.

Chuck certainly has an impressive history when it comes to his accuracy, especially when compared with another well-known weather-predicting groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Zoo in Pennsylvania.

The two go head-to-head for accurate predictions each year on Feb. 2.

And Chuck seems to get it right much more often than Phil, according to the Staten Island Zoo. Chuck was reported last year to have an accuracy rate of 85%, while Phil’s numbers hover just below 40%, the zoo reported. His current accuracy rate, including his accurate prediction in 2025, will be announced by the zoo on Groundhog Day 2026, a spokesperson said.

Phil has been issuing his predictions since 1887 from Gobbler’s Knob in Western Pennsylvania and has an overall accuracy rate of 39% over 135 years, according to StormFax Weather Almanac.

(Groundhogs can live only 14 years in captivity, so younger groundhogs have stepped in for both Phil and Chuck through the decades after the senior groundhogs have passed on.)

Despite their differing decisions through the years, in 2024 and 2025, both Phil and Chuck called for an early spring.

They are not the only groundhogs around the country who try to predict the timing of spring’s arrival.

Prediction ceremony

There will be a prediction ceremony at the Staten Island Zoo on Monday, Feb. 2, from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. Admission is free.

At 8:30 a.m., Chuck will make his yearly weather prediction. Staten Island elected officials, dignitaries, and representatives from Citizens, sponsors of the event, will join Zoo Executive Director Ken Mitchell for the announcement.

Students from Susan E. Wagner High School will be on hand and they’ll track the local forecast through March 20, the first day of spring, to see if his prediction is correct.

The event will take place outside the main building near the Broadway entrance of the zoo.