Sask. pig spleen weather prognosticator carries on family tradition
Jeff Woodward hopes for continued accuracy in his newly released forecast
Jeff Woodward isn't a meteorologist, but he has prepared a forecast for the rest of winter and spring that has some flavour.
Woodward uses pig spleens to determine temperature and precipitation trends for six-month periods. He spreads their fat onto a large piece of cardboard on his dining room table and traces them with a marker.
He said the patterns they form tell the weather story for the next half year.
"Each one of these veins of fat, they actually show where there's a rainfall or snowfall event going to happen," Woodward remarked as he split the traced fat into six even sections, representing the months from January to June.
The tradition dates back hundreds of years to rural Sweden, where Woodward's ancestors believed pigs could predict what kind of winter their farm could expect.
A pig would be butchered, and its spleen read by family and friends — with a shot of alcohol sometimes involved.
The ritual continued when the family immigrated to Canada more than 100 years ago.
Woodward learned the practice from his uncle, Gus Wickstrom, who was well-known in Saskatchewan, and even internationally, for his pig spleen weather prognostications.
Wickstrom claimed a spleen's forecast accuracy rate was beyond 90 per cent. Woodward said many of his predictions — no matter how obscure — came true.
"He predicted a snowfall, I don't remember the year … in June, that was sort of really far out, and it actually happened," said Woodward.
Wickstrom said the spleen could be used for more than just weather forecasting — claiming it could even reverse baldness, by wrapping it around a person's head.
He would often take a bite of the spleen when preparing a forecast. A few mouthfuls, he said, could act as an aphrodisiac.
Passing on the torch
Woodward was a longtime pig spleen protegé, as his uncle leaned into the tradition during his retirement in the late 1990s. But he became the official prognosticator when Wickstrom died in 2007.
Since then, he's been invited to speak at events and is frequently updating the spleen forecast Facebook page, where more than 6,000 followers patiently await the next forecast.
He finds it entertaining to see how people react.
"You've got everybody from the high skeptics that just say, 'This is a bunch of bull and it doesn't have any merit,' to people who will actually plan crop production around what the pig spleen says," Woodward said.
Danielle Desjardins, a meteorologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, said she finds it interesting that people like Woodward have unique ways of predicting the weather.
"Everybody has their own reasons for wanting to know exactly what's going to happen, whether it be personal or for, like, agriculture," Desjardins said.
But she said any forecast — scientific or otherwise — can't be guaranteed.
"No one's going to be 100 per cent accurate all the time," she said. "It's really hard to predict more than a week or two out. You're always going to get variability day to day or week to week."
Precipitation in particular, she said, is challenging to forecast.
Woodward doesn't know if he's as accurate as his uncle, but he is surprised how often his predictions come true.
He isn't the only one in his family who enjoys the craft. He even has prognosticators in waiting.
"My son is interested. I have a cousin in Saskatoon that's interested and some other relatives that do have an interest in it," said Woodward.
The official forecast
The six-month prediction — compiled from 11 spleens to get an average forecast — shows average temperatures from January through March, with above-average precipitation.
Woodward's forecast calls for large temperature swings and rain during this time — something that has, indeed, happened so far in January.
April to June, the spleens say, will feature below-average temperatures with average precipitation.
Woodward even warns of a rapid melt with localized flooding come spring.
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