Should we believe Woodstock Willie's prediction?

People drove around the suburbs with their windows open Monday, and Tuesday's thunderstorm felt more like April than February.

So it'd seem that Woodstock Willie's Groundhog Day prediction Tuesday of an early spring will be spot on.

But does this animal really predict anything correctly? No one is sure. Willie saw his shadow last year, signaling more winter, right after Chicago had its fifth-biggest snowfall ever on Super Bowl Sunday. So chalk that one up to the groundhog.

And if the National Weather Service is correct about El Niño giving us a milder than normal winter - which so far is the case - then Willie will be right again this year.

He's probably doing better at predicting the weather than the original groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania, who has only been correct 39 percent of the time over the past century, according to Stormfax.com.

Rick Bellairs, a member of Woodstock's Groundhog Day committee, said they don't keep track of whether Willie's predictions are right. The day is really just about the party.

"The weather will be what it will be," he said, laughing.

Tuesday morning, more than 200 people filled Woodstock Square at 7 a.m. to watch men in top hats and black coats perform a ceremony that included lines from the 1993 movie "Groundhog Day," which was filmed there.

They brought out Willie, who didn't see his shadow, signaling an early spring. Cheers erupted from the crowd, which included a guy in a chipmunk suit, people from as far away as Colorado and Florida, and a few people holding Bernie Sanders campaign signs.

While an early spring is something to cheer about, the "Groundhog Day" character of Phil Connors (Bill Murray) had a more skeptical and comical outlook:

"You want a prediction about the weather? You're asking the wrong Phil. I'll give you a winter prediction: It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be gray, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life."