Today is the day. Groundhog Day.

According to folklore, if a groundhog sees his or her shadow today when the animal comes out of its burrow, it will go back in and winter will continue for six weeks. If the animal doesn’t see its shadow, it will leave the burrow and winter is near the end.

That’s all good for folklorists, but science tends to disagree.

“The furtherest we can look and it be any type accurate is eight days,” said Jessica Talley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Birmingham, adding the weather service doesn’t have a model that extends six weeks.

In Selma for the next eight days, look for spring-like weather to end with high temperatures near 47. Those temperatures will fall by Friday into a high of 44, Talley said.

Overnight lows are expected to reach the upper 20s and climb to the lower 30s by Friday.

There’s a 20 percent chance of light freezing rain after midnight Wednesday, breaking into partly cloudy skies on Thursday before the rains return Thursday night and Friday.

But the weather isn’t atypical for February, she said.

February usually sees breaks in the cold temperatures with mild days, gradually giving way to spring weather, she said.