How Groundhog Day Folklore Inspired a Fantasy Epic for a New Generation
I remember sitting on my dad’s shoulders, trying to keep my hands warm, as we looked over a crowd of thousands—more people than I had ever seen. Barren oak trees loomed over us, offering little relief from the frigid winds that battered Gobbler’s Knob. The bundled masses listlessly shuffled in the mud with their hand warmers and ear bands. We all awaited the arrival of the world’s most famous weather predictor—a seemingly ageless Groundhog—in a Western Pennsylvania tradition nearly 200 years in the making.
(Crafting Animal Characters Like an Expert.)
We were near the back of the crowd, behind the manic devotees who braved the cold all night. From my vantage point, I could barely make out the large stump centerstage among the gang of black-clad men and handful of deputies that held the platform. Despite my own discomfort and boredom, I felt giddy, like I was part of something important.
Golden haze began to glimmer behind the distant hilltops. Suddenly the crowd erupted, and I knew it was time. Some huddling around the stump ensued, and news cameras at the front lunged forward. One of the men on stage hoisted a dangling sack of brown-gray fur the size of a throw pillow over his head. The crowd lost it.
It looked the same as the family of groundhogs living under our shed at home, but the moment still somehow felt magical. It was the feeling on Christmas Eve when we set out the cookies, or the excitement of grasping the silver dollar that the tooth fairy left under my pillow. Except there was something unique about this, something distinctly … Punxsutawney, or “Punxsy” as us natives call it.
Recently, I found myself standing in line at a Punxsutawney Urgent Care. I’d developed a sinus infection during my visit away from the Florida town where I now live. The man at the front of the line held a Ziploc bag with a tic in it that he pulled from his leg. The guy after him had a rash he claimed could only be caused by Poison Oak. Even now Punxsy seemed to exist on the fringes of the forest. Nature was a part of life here. I wondered how much that had shaped my outlook.
During the Covid lockdowns, I had the audacity to venture outside of an occasional local op-ed and try my hand at creative writing. At the time, I was serving on Palm Beach County’s Soil & Water Conservation District, and we’d just been forced to cancel our field trip program that taught students about the Everglades. I couldn’t work, and like many of us then my mind constantly idled back to the security and enchantment of childhood. I became obsessed with recreating that magic from Gobbler’s Knob on Groundhog Day, but I wanted to reach today’s youth.
Kids today are burdened with things I couldn’t have fathomed when my dad hoisted me over that freezing crowd all those years ago. Their generation will be tasked with solving the climate crisis—they’re probably the last generation who still have a chance to. But here in Florida, children are somewhat buffered from nature’s majesty. We had to pull them from the classrooms for an opportunity to see the Everglades—unlike my own childhood spent playing in the woods every day after school.
So, I chipped away at a story about a young groundhog—descended from a long line of weather predictors—who is unsure of his destiny. My groundhog—Philip Weathersby Rodington IX, aka Junior—lives in a fantastical world populated only by anthropomorphized animals. His world is full of its own magic and intrigue, all underpinned by a great impending doom that makes the very weather he’s supposed to predict … unpredictable.
It felt like I was onto something.
But this story proved elusive. I wrestled with versions of it for over a year until I was about to give up. Out of desperation, I took it to my friend Andrew Dolberg, someone whom I knew—from various heated movie and book debates—had a strong sense for narrative structure. Until then, I’d kept my writing secret, unable to explain it to anyone without sounding crazy. I half expected Andrew to politely agree to read it, then slow fade, never to answer my calls again. Instead, his reaction was unbridled excitement about the concept and its potential. He breathed new life into my fledgling project overnight.
From there, Andrew and I spent the next year and a half building the sprawling narrative that is The Great Weather Diviner.
Check out The Great Weather Diviner, by Rob Long and Andrew Dolberg, here:
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Our novel is meant to be a fractured fairy tale of sorts that pays homage to the beloved 186-year-old piece of American folklore that defines my hometown. But it’s also meant for a generation—and their parents—living in a world in peril, who have become disconnected from nature’s majesty and fragility.
Our goal was to craft a new folktale reminding people to cherish nature. We use animals to tell a deeply human story about the threats we face and the hope we should all feel when we decide to face our fears. Children and adults will all enjoy our action-packed adventure while considering the environmental impacts that our book portrays.
All those years ago on that cold morning I don’t remember if Punxsy Phil saw his shadow or not, I just remember how I felt. All of us there knew we’d fought the cold for something special, something that defined who we were and who we could be. I hope that The Great Weather Diviner makes people feel the same way.