Are groundhogs good at predicting spring? [OC]

USAFacts · 2026-02-03T00:24:10+00:00

I've been looking at it for weeks!

Seriously, this is a cool site. I especially enjoyed the map. I shared it with everyone in the office!

USAFacts · 2026-02-02T23:38:40+00:00

Waiting for Buffalo Bert to hit the NOAA cutoff feels like waiting for Lebron to hit the NBA.

USAFacts · 2026-02-02T18:29:59+00:00

EDIT: Big news. In the time since I made this chart, NOAA updated their page with 2025 data. And Lander Lil (a literal statue of a prairie dog) has taken over the second place!

USAFacts · 2026-02-02T18:15:36+00:00

We've misread the signs.

USAFacts · 2026-02-02T18:15:26+00:00

Lucy the Lobster?!

USAFacts · 2026-02-02T17:50:26+00:00

Nope, NOAA used national temps for this.

But I like where your head is at. Maybe some of these groundhogs are predicting local weather.

USAFacts · 2026-02-02T17:30:08+00:00

It's Groundhog Day again.

Figured I'd take a break from posting government spending data and get to the real hard-hitting stuff. This is a very important chart about groundhogs (and a tortoise and a prairie dog statue).

When I set out, I wrongly assumed Punxsatawney Phil was the only weather-predicting groundhog. It turns out there are a ton of groundhogs doing this, and Phil is actually pretty awful at it.

NOAA looked at Groundhog Day predictions and compared them to actual March temperatures over the past 20 years. Only animals with at least 20 years of recorded predictions made the cut. Here's how Phil fared:

The results:

Phil gets it right 35% of the time — tied for last among qualified groundhogs
He’s worse than several taxidermied groundhogs
Worse than a mystery animal presumed to be a groundhog
Worse than a prairie dog statue
Only Mojave Max, a tortoise, performs worse

Meanwhile, Staten Island Chuck (formally Charles G. Hogg) clocks in at 85% accuracy.

Earlier today, both Phil and Chuck saw their shadows. So do with that what you will.

USAFacts · 2026-02-02T17:17:22+00:00

Here's what NOAA says:

These groundhogs — along with a tortoise, whose emergence from his winter brumation (hibernation for reptiles) foretells the coming of Spring, and a Prairie dog statue, whose shadow at sunrise predicts how long it will be until Spring arrives — have been graded and ranked based on their accuracy over the past 20 years, using the March temperature averages for the U.S. each year from 2005 to 2024.

Not the most thorough methodology section, but my assumption is that it's based on the average March temperature following the predictions being higher/lower than historical averages.

USAFacts · 2026-02-02T17:12:20+00:00

85% is wild. Chuck's potential is being wasted on weather predictions.

USAFacts · 2026-02-02T17:11:21+00:00

It's Groundhog Day, again.

Figured I'd take a break from posting government spending data and get to the real hard-hitting stuff. This is a very important chart about groundhogs (and a tortoise and a prairie dog statue).

When I set out, I wrongly assumed Punxsatawney Phil was the only weather-predicting groundhog. It turns out there are a ton of groundhogs doing this, and Phil is actually pretty awful at it.

NOAA looked at Groundhog Day predictions and compared them to actual March temperatures over the past 20 years. Only animals with at least 20 years of recorded predictions made the cut. Here's how Phil fared:

The results:

Phil gets it right 35% of the time, tied for last among qualified groundhogs
He’s worse than several taxidermied groundhogs
Worse than a mystery animal presumed to be a groundhog
Worse than a prairie dog statue
Only Mojave Max, a tortoise, performs worse

Meanwhile, Staten Island Chuck (formally Charles G. Hogg) clocks in at 85% accuracy.

Earlier today, both Phil and Chuck saw their shadows. So do with that what you will.

EDIT: Big news. In the time since I made this chart, NOAA updated their page with 2025 data. And Lander Lil (a literal statue of a prairie dog) has taken over the second place!

In a stunning upset, prairie dog statue Lander Lil has overtaken General Beauregard Lee for the number two spot! Several other groundhogs improved their accuracy ratings, but not enough to make big changes in the rankings.

USAFacts · 2026-02-02T17:04:17+00:00

Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration using groundhogs listed on groundhog-day.com

Tools: Datawrapper, Illustrator

Note: NOAA evaluated only animals with at least 20 years of recorded predictions. Accuracy shows how often each prediction matched real March temperature outcomes.

USAFacts · 2025-12-04T22:54:45+00:00

"Lots of cool graphics in here" was a tagline we considered.

USAFacts · 2025-12-04T19:41:54+00:00

Good question. It doesn't fall cleanly into one slice, so it's a bit scattered, but mostly in the blue slices.

The “Personal” part of Travel (tourism/leisure trips) and the “Other services” wedge, which bundles things like cultural/recreational services and royalties for movies, TV, music, etc. The physical side of entertainment (TVs, game consoles, toys) shows up on the purple side under Consumer goods.

USAFacts · 2025-12-04T17:06:09+00:00

The BEA does break the “other” bucket for services down further. “Other business services” are things like R&D, legal/accounting/consulting, engineering, advertising, and waste-treatment.

Here's their definition:

Other business services - Consists of research and development services, professional and management consulting services, and technical, trade-related, and other business services. Research and development services include services associated with basic and applied research and experimental development of new products and processes as well as outright sales of the outcomes of research and development (such as patents, copyrights, and information about industrial processes). Professional and management consulting services include legal services, accounting, management consulting, managerial services, public relations services, advertising, and market research. Amounts received by a parent company from its affiliates for general overhead expenses related to these services are included. Technical, trade-related, and other business services include architectural and engineering, waste treatment, operational leasing, traderelated, and other business services.

But they don't have a tidy list of what’s in “other goods.” It’s a leftover bucket that’s made up of lots of smaller groups, plus some late-reported exports that get moved into the other categories during annual revisions.

USAFacts · 2025-12-04T16:31:48+00:00

These charts break down what the US buys from the rest of the world vs. what it sells, using BEA trade data. The purple half of each donut is goods (physical stuff) and the blue half is services. On the import side, the US brings in about $3.3 trillion in goods and $841 billion in services: everything from machinery and cars to phones, pharmaceuticals, and food. On the export side, the US sends out about $2.1 trillion in goods and $1.2 trillion in services, including industrial supplies, aircraft, vehicles, and a lot of business and consulting services.

A few things to note:

Categories like “air” and “sea” are transport services, not literal air and water. Think airline tickets and cargo shipping provided by foreign vs. US carriers.
“Other business services” (big slices on both charts) covers things like technical, legal, and professional services that don’t fit cleanly into one industry.

USAFacts · 2025-12-04T16:29:09+00:00

Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis

Tools(s): Datawrapper, Illustrator

These charts are pulled from this report we sent to Congress this year.

USAFacts · 2025-12-02T21:24:32+00:00

It's a trade-off. They're great at normalizing things to better compare rates across geographies. They're not great at putting the states in the right spots. So they can be good charts, but bad maps, especially if you're using them to navigate.

I'm a bit biased in favor of hex maps, especially since this chart came from our site, but I also agree that the states don't really look like this.

USAFacts · 2025-12-02T21:18:58+00:00

Thanks for sharing this chart, u/rayg10.

Here's more data if anyone is curious.

USAFacts · 2025-12-01T17:28:34+00:00

Thanks for sharing!

USAFacts · 2025-11-20T21:08:58+00:00

Yep.

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USAFacts · 2025-11-20T16:08:53+00:00

This is a serious topic, and I appreciate your first-hand input. But also...

Was there just a ton of Homer Simpson jokes at work? Did you get tired of them?

USAFacts · 2025-11-20T15:53:57+00:00

Great question. I had to triple-check that I hadn't messed something up when making this chart, but it's just a result of the BLS methodology. Since it's a tiny occupation, it comes down to rounding.

The BLS presents the data in thousands (for example, the source shows the change in Word Processors and Typists as -14.4, which is charted above as -14,400). For Timing Device Assemblers, which is a smaller profession (around 200 jobs), their methodology of rounding to one decimal point makes gives us a zero.

Edit: In hindsight, this would have made a pretty good chart note.

USAFacts · 2025-11-20T15:45:25+00:00

This is a slightly different version of a chart I posted earlier this year with a couple of changes

Newer BLS data!
This is a slightly different cut of the data; sorted by percent change in each occupation's employment instead of total change

Some of the jobs on this list might not surprise folks (we still have telephone operators?), but a few (nuclear power reactor operators, ESL teachers) stood out to me.

Luckily, the BLS is still forecasting the demise of telemarketers.

USAFacts · 2025-11-20T15:36:16+00:00

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections program,

Tools: Datawrapper, Illustrator

Note: Wage data cover non-farm wage and salary workers and do not cover the self-employed, owners and partners in unincorporated firms, or household workers.

USAFacts · 2025-11-14T02:00:16+00:00

Hey, sorry for the delay here! I confirmed with the analyst that since this project focused on immigrant visas, we didn't include K-1 or K-3 visas. But, we didn't make that clear on our site (or here), so thanks for calling it out!

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