Curse that Groundhog

Apparently, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today. Six more weeks of winter weather before the advent of spring. Dangit.

Now, why in the heck do we turn our winter weather prediction over to a little, fuzzy animal? That's what I want to know. Doesn't that seem a little ridiculous to any of you? Well, I figured out where the tradition came from, actually, by doing a brief internet search (what did we do before the advent of the world wide web, anyway?).

According to an old German superstition (central Pennsylvania was originally colonized by Germans), if a hibernating animal sees its shadow on Candlemas, there will be six more months of winter. If the animal doesn't see its shadow, there will be an "early" spring.

So....if it's sunny and it can see his shadow (aka spring-like conditions), we'll have more winter. If it's cloudy and it can't see his shadow (aka winter conditions), we'll have an early spring. My question for my German friends is this: are all your traditions counter-intuitive like this? Seems pretty dumb to me.

Oh well - I guess if this prediction holds true, it means I'll actually get a chance to go skiing this season, since I haven't had any money to do so yet. But people come on - let's turn the weather predicting over to the professionals, not a furry rodent, no matter how cute it may be.