Punxsutawney Phil has seen his shadow, predicting six more weeks of wintry weather, his top-hatted handlers have told a raucus, record-sized crowd at Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania.

Phil was welcomed with chants of “Phil, Phil, Phil,” and pulled from a hatch on his tree stump shortly after sunrise on Sunday before a member of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club read from a scroll in which he boasted: “Only I know – you can't trust AI.”

The woodchuck’s weather forecast is an annual ritual that goes back more than a century in western Pennsylvania, with far older roots in European folklore, but it took the 1993 movie Groundhog Day to transform the event into what it is today, with tens of thousands of revellers at the scene and imitators scattered around the United States and beyond.

Punxsutawney Phil, with handler AJ Dereume, has predicted six more weeks of winter. – AP

When Phil is deemed to have not seen his shadow, that is said to usher in an early spring. When he does see it, there will be six more weeks of winter.

The crowd was treated to a show as they awaited sunrise and Phil's emergence. Governor Josh Shapiro, local and state elected officials and a pair of pageant winners were among the dignitaries at the scene.

Self-employed New York gingerbread artist Jon Lovitch has attended the event for 33 years.

“I like the cold, you know, and this is probably the best and biggest midwinter party in the entire world,” Lovitch said in Punxsutawney. “And it’s just a really good time.”

Phil has predicted a longer winter far more often than an early spring, and one effort to track his accuracy concluded he was right less than half the time. What six more weeks of winter means is subjective.

The big crowd waits for Punxsutawney Phil. – AP

Tom Dunkel, president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, said Phil communicated his forecast to him through “Groundhog-ese” with the help of a special cane that Dunkel has inherited as the club's leader. It's not as if he speaks in English words.

“He’ll like wink, he’ll purr, he’ll chatter, he’ll — you know — nod,” Dunkel said.

Attendance is free but it costs $5 to take a bus and avoid a 1 mile (1.6km) trek from the middle of town to the stage where the prediction is made, some 80 miles (123km) northeast of Pittsburgh. The need for so many buses is why the local schools, where the sports mascot is the Chucks, close when Groundhog Day falls on a weekday.

A new welcome centre opened four years ago and the club is working on an elaborate second living space for Phil and family so they can split time between Gobbler's Knob and Phil's longtime home at the town library. The club also put up large video screens and more powerful speakers this year to help attendees in the back of the crowd follow the proceedings.

The annual ritual goes back more than a century in western Pennsylvania. – AP

"It's a holiday where you don't really owe anyone anything," said AJ Dereume, who among the club's 15-member inner circle serves as Phil's handler. "You're grasping onto the belief, you know, in something that's just fun to believe in."

Phil has a wife, Punxsutawney Phyllis, and two pups born this spring, Shadow and Sunny, although his family won't join him on stage for the big event. The groundhog family eats fruits and vegetables, get daily visits from Dereume and see a veterinarian at least once a year.

Groundhog Day celebrations, formal and informal, are being held in many Pennsylvania towns and elsewhere on Sunday. There have been Groundhog Day events in at least 28 US states and Canadian provinces.