Westchester’s weather-predicting chicken, Cluxatawney Henrietta, figures there will be six more weeks of winter, as do Pennsylvania’s groundhog Punxsutawney Phil and some other groundhogs around the country. As if to support what Henrietta predicted on Groundhogs Day yesterday, Mother Nature left a covering of snow on the ground overnight in the local area.
Henrietta is in residence at the Albert B. DelBello Muscoot Farm in Katonah. The farm’s annual Groundhog Day festivity is now in its seventh year.
Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said, “Cluxatawney Henrietta has become a true Groundhog Day icon in Westchester County. The excitement and buzz surrounding our hometown hen’s annual weather prediction is simply unbeatable.”
Jenkins noted that local officials as well as County Board of Legislators Chairman Vedat Gashi were on hand.
Westchester County Parks First Deputy Commissioner Peter Tartaglia said, “Everybody can have a groundhog, anybody can see a shadow, but not everyone can lay an egg,” referring to Cluxatawney Henrietta.
Tartaglia said that he was on Team Spring in hoping for an early end to the winter weather.
Muscoot Farm Director Jonathon Benjamin said this year’s was the largest Groundhog Day turnout at Muscoot Farm since the festivity began began beginning.
“Who needs a groundhog when we have Cluxatawney Henrietta?,” Benjamin said. “Our spirited fine-feathered forecaster steps up to the challenge every time, proving she can outshine groundhogs across the nation with her unique weather-predicting talents!”
Benjamin read a letter that he said Henrietta had written to him in chicken-scratch in which she supposedly said she did not lay an egg since there would be six more weeks of winter. when Benjamin took Henrietta out of her cage, he found that, in fact, there was no egg there.
Winter itself came around again overnight and into Monday morning with mixed precipitation and snowfall in Westchester and the Hudson Valley. The National Weather Service said that snowfall amounts were light for most of the area, with around an inch or less from northeastern New Jersey, New York, and Long Island. Farther north, snowfall amounts were 1 to 3 inches across the Lower Hudson Valley, and closer to 3 inches for interior southern Connecticut.
