A festival in the nation’s capital has decided that D.C. needs its own weather-groundhog, so today they trotted out “Potomac Phil.” Thing is, he’s dead.

Today – Ground Hog Day – ‘Potomac Phil’ took the stage at the Dupont Festival and agreed with the legendary Punxsutawney Phil that we’re in for another six weeks of winter.

So, why does D.C need its own weather-predicting groundhog…and, how do they communicate with him, if he’s deceased (and stuffed)?

I called and had a chat with Aaron DeNu, founding member and principle organizer of the non-profit Dupont Festival to ask and find out.

Mr. DeNu tells me Potomac Phil is actually related to Punxsutawney Phil, and was enlisted to fill “a void in the groundhog community.” Apparently, other cities have their own weather-groundhogs. Who knew?

To get the weather prediction from poor, dead Potomac Phil, DeNu says, they employ a committee of dignitaries to “look at his eyes, and his stance and his stares and kind of, yeah, decipher what was going on in his mind.”

The challenges of communicating with a stuffed animal could be resolved next year, however – since they’re hoping to “reanimate his still body and bring him back to life.”

Here’s the full transcript of my conversation with Aaron DeNu (emphasis added):

G: First, what brought this about?  What was the need for Potomac Phil?

A: Yeah, well I’m a part of the Dupont Festival which is a non-profit-its here in Dupont Circle.  We do a number of fun events in and around the community and there was just a void in the groundhog community.  You know, Groundhog Day’s are celebrated across the country, notably in Punxsutawney and we figured you know, why not-why not make it happen here in D.C.?  So we went ahead and started planning and we had our event today.

G: Okay, and how did you, how did you pick Potomac Phil?

A: Potomac Phil, so the story goes is actually related to Punxsutawney Phil-they’re brothers.  Therefore, Potomac Phil has also inherited the internal power of weather prediction.  Apparently he’s been around in D.C. for awhile but it wasn’t until just this year he decided to come out and make his prediction.

G: Now-and how does he communicate with you guys, given especially that he’s deceased?

A: (laughter) It presents a challenging dilemma but you know, we had to get up close, and we kind of had to look at his eyes, and his stance and his stares and kind of yeah decipher what was going on in his mind.  We’re hoping next year that we’ll reanimate his still body and bring him back to life-maybe we’ll have a live one next year.

G: And who is-who reads his weather predictions?  Is it you or was that someone else?

A: Well, that’s a great question.  Yeah, there’s a-there’s a Groundhog committee and we’re looking for volunteers to be a part of that Groundhog committee next year for our event.  But there’s a Groundhog committee which is compromised of some people from different areas of the city represented in top hats and they huddled around the groundhog and we were fortunate enough to have Council member Jack Evans, we had a representative from the mayor’s office, we had a lieutenant of police here with us, we had the National Parks Service with us-we had, we had a good representation of the city.

G: Okay, great.  That’s about it.

A: Cool.  Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

G: Thanks for your time.

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