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The city’s rodent prognosticator signaled warmer temps and fairer skies ahead just days after the New York region got rocked by a powerful storm, dumping more than a foot of snow in some sections of Queens.
Chuck appeared after a video message from Mayor Eric Adams – the “very special honorary guest” mentioned by organizers on Facebook ahead of the annual city ritual.
Mayor Eric Adams didn’t attend the event like his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, who has opted to skip in the subsequent years after he infamously dropped Chuck’s 10-month-old stand-in, Charlotte, in 2014. The groundhog, which fell nearly six feet, died of acute internal injuries a week later.
Adams, a former New York City police officer, was instead attending the funeral of slain NYPD cop Wilbert Mora early Wednesday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where he was scheduled to address mourners.
The city’s new mayor hopes to join the Groundhog Day festivities in coming years, mayoral spokesman Fabien Levy told The Post Tuesday.
Staten Island Chuck, also known as Charles G. Hogg, has an accuracy rate of 85%, according to the Staten Island Zoo.
That’s far higher than the success rate of his Pennsylvania counterpart, Punxsutawney Phil, who is correct between 35 and 41 percent of the time depending on the data source, according to the Staten Island Advance. Phil has been right half of the time in the last decade, however.
Chuck predicted an early spring last February — a call that zoo officials said was accurate.
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