From where Iâve been sitting â with cool breezes, sunny blue skies and mountain greenery â Iâd say Punxsutawney Philâs prediction for an early spring in 2016 was correct. Now I donât live in western Pennsylvania, so your call may be different.
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Even so, Philâs accuracy rating is given as 39%. (Several websites quote this figure; for example, see Livescience.com). Speaking as a one-day wonder has-been in the WxChallenge (a weather forecasting competition) Iâd say Philâs score as a general forecaster is not very good. But, in his position as (to quote a character in Ground Hog Day) âseer of seers, prognosticator of prognosticatorsâ heâs going well. Certainly Phil the Punxsutawney Prophet scores higher than the Des Moines Doomsayer, HWA.
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In the pages the Painful Truth, some 300 false prophecies of HWA and his minions are listed. And that doesnât include those of prophecies of splinter leaders who followed in his wake. But â how many of his predictions actually have come to pass?
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In the words of HWAâs grandson, he was touted as an insightful prophetic wonder. From memory, I think he was credited with about three or four good calls. To begin with, the USA never had a direct military conflict with Russia. Letâs give him the benefit of the doubt, and limit that to the now defunct USSR, and give him a point.
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Germany reunited. Well, the majority of it was, but if HWAâs WWII prophecies had come to pass, Germany wouldnât have any need to reunite. But, give him another point.
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Trouble in the Middle East â ignoring his early claim that the modern nation of Israel wasnât going to happen, give another point. And give him a bonus point for the âprophecyâ of the Six-Day War, which he wasnât expecting to happen in 1967. And letâs ignore the Radio Jerusalem contract.
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So weâll give HWA four points for the accuracy of his undated predictions. Out of 300, that makes his accuracy rating less than 2%. Maybe he was better than that, but nowhere near Philâs score.
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Of course, Phil makes specific weather predictions. In the standard repertoire of titles in the splinters, one may find a booklet, article or sermon with a title like God Controls the Weather. The tone used by different COGs varies from God using weather favors or disasters for specific reasons, to God micromanaging the climate down to every drop of rain that falls (whether a flower grows or not).
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The best splinter âpredictionsâ for weather events â apart from generalized future events â have been in hindsight: why things occurred. So we are told Katrina hit New Orleans because it was a wicked city, drought in California was because legalizing same-sex marriage, and so on. And Iâm not going near the different takes on Global Climate Change. They seem to forget that prophets such as Elijah warmed specifically what would happen before it happened.
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So perhaps God actually has Philâs ear â he made a prediction that came to pass, and not an excuse for something that already happened.