Experts warn: be wary of weather prognosticating ground squirrels

Balzac Billy might be predicting an early spring for Southern Alberta, but at this stage he appears to be the only one.

Experts aren’t putting too much faith in the region’s weather predicting ground squirrel as the cold air starts to settle in over Calgary.

660 Meteorologist David Spence believes Billy’s success has been nothing more than sheer luck.

According to organizers in Balzac, Billy (who is a human in a large ground squirrel outfit) has been right 70 per cent of the time.

“Don’t believe a word of it,” Spence says. “Even human beings, experienced weather forecasters, can’t predict that far into the future. It’s just folklore and that’s how it should be taken.”

“There’s really no way to tell what the weather will be like beyond five days, after that you’re just looking at trends,” he adds. “There’s no reliable way of saying when it will warm up, or so-called spring is going to arrive.”

His comments come as a cold blast of Arctic air has settled in over the city.

To top it all off, there wasn’t even consensus amongst Canada’s groundhogs this year; Shubenacadie Sam is looking at an early spring in Nova Scotia, Wiarton Willie believes there will be six more weeks of winter in Ontario and Willow in Winnipeg feels there will be an early spring for its city.

At this stage, Spence says only time will tell when spring decides to make its arrival.

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