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Punxsutawney Phil is definitely standing in Staten Island Chuck’s shadow.
The local New York groundhog accurately predicted an early spring this year — coming out on top of his more famous, but less precise prognosticating counterpart from Pennsylvania, a group of city school students has found.
The teen scientists from Susan Wager High School confirmed Thursday that — rather than six more weeks of winter, as Phil predicted — spring-like weather has apparently sprung three weeks earlier than the equinox.
“Chuck was correct!” senior Gabby Beitta, 18, the group’s record keeper, said at the big reveal Thursday, igniting a roar of cheers from her fellow weather trackers.
According to the students’ findings, spring may have swept through the five boroughs as early as Feb. 25, when temperatures consistently started rolling in above 45 degrees.
The group — made up of the Staten Island school’s agricultural science and AP environmental classes — had been tracking the weather each day since Chuck failed to see his shadow on Feb. 2, utilizing their state-of-the-art weather station.
“They detect the moisture in the dirt, the fertilization levels of the soil — it actually measures a lot of soil because it’s burrowed into the ground — and it also uses satellites from different parts of the city to give us some more accurate reading of the average of the weather for the city,” explained Pheoniz Garcia, 16, a junior at the school.
The students specifically log the highest temperature for each day between Groundhog Day and the first day of spring, Feb. 2 and March 20, respectively, to determine whether the weather is trending upwards, added senior, Dante Jikia, 17.
Their data showed that temperatures stayed low from Groundhog Day through Valentine’s Day, when a warm wave of 40-degree days swept through the city.
A sudden cold snap, however, plunged the five boroughs back to 35 degrees, and even as low as 25 degrees, for another week — threatening the resident groundhog’s 16-year accuracy record.
“Groundhog Day was super cold, and then it started to warm up — but then it got a lot colder and we got a little worried,” said Beitta.
The students weren’t the only ones worried, according to science teacher Robert Frendrick: “I started getting emails from the zoo. I think Chuck was getting worried and he was like, ‘I don’t know, it’s been pretty cold out!’”
Temperatures rose yet again on Feb. 25 and remained consistent through the first day of spring, other than a cold day here and there.
The findings may be shocking to some New Yorkers, who grappled with chilling winds and cloud coverage in recent weeks which may have made the temperatures feel deceptively colder than they actually were.
“We were here [on Groundhog Day], it was 31 degrees, but we thought it was colder because of the wind. Right now it’s spring, but we feel like it’s cold and it’s that wind that does play a significant role in temperature and also our perception of whether Chuck is right or not,” explained senior Elizabeth Ogbonnaya, 17.
Staten Island Chuck’s early spring prediction this year put him at odds with Punxsutawney Phil, who gambled on six more weeks of winter.
This year’s prediction marks the 16th year in a row one of the Staten Island Zoo’s furry city slickers — all eponymously called “Charles G. Hogg” — has accurately predicted the weather, bumping his history accuracy rate to 86%.
Phil — whose reps did not immediately return a request for comment — has only racked up a 3%% accuracy rate since he started in 1885.
Meanwhile, last time the Chuck was wrong was back in 2009, coincidentally the same year he famously chomped on then-Mayor Bloomberg’s hand on live television.
In 2014, a female woodchuck named Charlotte who was filling the role of Chuck, even delivered an accurate reading shortly before then-Mayor Bill “Butterfingers” de Blasio tragically dropped her, killing her.
The borough’s district attorney, Michael McMahon, was on hand at the zoo Thursday as the high schoolers revealed the verdict to ensure it went along smoothly.
“Being that I am a man of conviction, if there is any foul play here again, we will prosecute. In the past, this has been a crime scene, this location. And so we’ve got to be careful about that,” McMahon joked.
The reveal was ultimately a celebration of the Susan Wagner students, who have been diligently corroborating Chuck’s predictions for the past three years.
The exercise allows them to flex their scientific chops — and boast the privilege of being the only school to work alongside the nation’s most accurate weather-predicting groundhog.
“You want to help out, contribute. We got to see the groundhog Chuck come out and the experience is overall just amazing to see the changes in the weather,” said senior Leonardo Avila, 17.
“This group has been amazing. To see everyone always be consistent on what our temperatures are and to always measure without losing a day.”
