{"id":120376,"date":"2026-02-02T19:17:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T19:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/120376\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T19:17:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T19:17:23","slug":"a-lot-of-heartbreak-staten-island-chuck-declares-6-more-weeks-of-winter-at-groundhog-day-ceremony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/120376\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A lot of heartbreak\u2019: Staten Island Chuck declares 6 more weeks of winter at Groundhog Day ceremony"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 Don\u2019t blame the groundhog, folks.<\/p>\n

On Monday morning, Staten Island Chuck \u2014 a.k.a Charles G. Hogg \u2014 ventured out of his burrow at the Staten Island Zoo in West Brighton and saw his shadow, predicting six more weeks of winter. <\/p>\n

The zoo was forced to adjust the festivities this year, as the Groundhog Day ceremony was closed to the public due to continued below-freezing temperatures<\/a> \u2014 perhaps an early indicator of the prediction. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1\/22<\/p>\n

Staten Island Groundhog Day 2026<\/p>\n

While not drawing a crowd like the year prior<\/a>, Chuck\u2019s 2026 prediction did see dozens of local officials, preschoolers from the Staten Island YMCA and a cadre of high school students from Susan E. Wagner High School, Sea View, who will serve as Chuck\u2019s \u201cweather checkers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really exciting, I\u2019ve never gotten to see this before,\u201d said Ava Ilardi a Westerleigh resident and senior at Susan E. Wagner High School who will keep Chuck in check.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoing it as part of the AP environmental class [at Wagner], I think is really special, because we have an entire class devoted to everything to do with the weather and nature,\u201d Ilardi continued. \u201cEven though, you know, it\u2019s not like a tried-and-true scientific phenomenon, it\u2019s fun to see a folk story and science intersect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials take the stage<\/p>\n

Emceed by District Attorney Michael E. McMahon, the event was well attended by Staten Island\u2019s political class, including Councilmembers Kamillah Hanks, David Carr and Frank Morano, along with State Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton and Assemblymember Michael Tannousis.<\/p>\n

Two New York City officials were also greeted warmly by the crowd, Department of Sanitation Borough Chief Christopher Hancock and NYC Parks Borough Commissioner Joseph Homsey. <\/p>\n

The festivities also took a back seat, briefly, as McMahon called for a moment of silence to remember one of last year\u2019s co-hosts, Cara Liander Gordon, 41, who died in November<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s event was sponsored by Citizens\u2019 Bank, which contributed funds for the ceremony, high school weather monitoring and care for the zoo\u2019s resident groundhog.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that we get to sponsor the event here in the Staten Island Zoo, have the local schools and the children participate, it\u2019s very exciting,\u201d said Yajaira Hafley, Tristate metro retail market executive at Citizens.<\/p>\n

Winter of discontent<\/p>\n

While the officials cajoled Chuck for a prediction of early spring, many in attendance left disappointed with the call for an extended winter. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very sad, there\u2019s a lot of heartbreak,\u201d said Abigail Saladis, a Wagner High School senior who lives in Westerleigh. \u201cVery unfortunate to see maybe there\u2019s more ice and snow coming our way, but you know, we have to trust him.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Chuck is one groundhog to trust. The borough\u2019s most famous animal boasts a nearly 90% accuracy rate according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a>. <\/p>\n

A few other stragglers from the public were able to slip in to see the rodent prognosticator\u2019s prediction, including one family who ventured all the way from Queens. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe got up at 5 [a.m.] to get here,\u201d said Tom Boland of Bayside, who came along with his children Declan, 12, and Bridget, 11. \u201cWe\u2019ve been here twice before. It\u2019s such a great event, and it\u2019s a local one so we have to support a local one.\u201d <\/p>\n

Chuck\u2019s forecast on Monday was a change of pace, as it ended a 12-year streak of Chuck calling for an early spring which dates back to 2014.<\/p>\n

Longtime Staten Islanders might also remember the 2014 prediction for other reasons, as it was also the year that then-Mayor Bill de Blasio accidentally dropped Staten Island Chuck<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Chuck made the right call about six more weeks of winter,\u201d said Ken Mitchell, executive director of the Staten Island Zoo.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone looks forward to Groundhog Day here on Staten Island. It\u2019s a fantastic event, it\u2019s a real community event and Staten Island Zoo is proud to put this on every year,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

A decades-long beef<\/p>\n

In Pennsylvania, Chuck\u2019s rival, Punxsutawney Phil, also called for six more weeks of winter after seeing his shadow.<\/a><\/p>\n

Phil shared his prediction from his home at Gobbler\u2019s Knob, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where he\u2019s been delivering his predictions since 1886.<\/p>\n

It was a rare instance of agreement for the two, who have a history of different opinions.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Chuck predicted an early spring,<\/a> while Phil did not.<\/a> And again, Staten Island\u2019s student weather trackers confirmed Chuck\u2019s accuracy.<\/p>\n

According to the StormFax Weather Almanac<\/a>, Phil has just an overall accuracy rate of 39% over 135 years.<\/p>\n

Including last year\u2019s early spring forecast <\/a>, Chuck\u2019s extended winter-or-early spring predictions have been accurate for much of the last two decades.<\/p>\n

After being wrong in 2009, the same year he bit then- Mayor Michael Bloomberg<\/a>, Chuck slipped up in 2017, when students at PS 45 who tracked Chuck\u2019s prediction said he was wrong that year<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 Don\u2019t blame the groundhog, folks. On Monday morning, Staten Island Chuck \u2014 a.k.a Charles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-120376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}