Bet On It

Punxsatawney Phil, the famous groundhog of winter procrastination, failed to see his shadow today, anecdotallly predicting an early Spring.

Cool.

Only problem is that apparently, the renowned weather rodent has only a 39% accuracy rate in his seasonal prognostications.

Bummer.

Wait a minute, though: if you were to make the prediction randomly, you’d expect approximately a 50% accuracy rate. At 39%, Phil is more often than not wrong in his forecast. This means that he is (somewhat) reliably incorrect. Therefore by essentially switching the polarity of his prediction (in other words, break out the short sleeves if he DOES see his shadow) you will have a better than average chance of being correct, ie, not freezing off your buns in a too-light sweater.

Everyone got that? If not, I can always run through it again…