Punxsutawney Phil’s team of top-hatted associates will issue the woodchuck’s weather verdict as the sun rises on Sunday, telling the world whether he is predicting wintry conditions for the next six weeks or an early spring.

The annual ritual goes back more than a century in western Pennsylvania, with far older roots in European folklore, but it took the 1993 ‘Groundhog Day’ movie to transform the event into what it is today.