The 2025 pig spleen weather forecast is in, and we're looking at a cooler, wetter first half of the year.
Pig spleen weather prognosticator Jeff Woodward based his forecast this year on eleven spleen specimens from several locations around the Tompkins area.
"The winter sort of divided into two halves," Woodward said. "The first half is more of an average winter. January, February, March we're going to see some more like back to some of the average temperatures, a little bit cooler than I think we've experienced in the last four or five years. Above average precipitation during that. think we can see that continues to accumulate through the winter."
That could include some temperature swings this month.
"January starting out cold," Woodward noted. "Getting a little bit nicer sort of around the 8th or 9th but remaining cold except for the end of the month. We're going to see some of those odd fluctuations again where we might even get some rain towards the end of the month. In general, we have an average January, February, March and then April, May and June are going to be below average temperatures and probably a little bit wetter than the normal again. So long cool spring. We might be even seeing some flooding in the province with the snow that accumulates and with a rapid warming in the springtime."
This could all be good news for farmers after a few years of dry conditions.
"It shows some really good rainfall events just prior to seeding," Woodward said. "I think the soil moisture is going to be good. Southwest part of the province we'll see some of that soil moisture rebound a little bit because you know it's been so dry down there over the last few years. This snow plus a little bit of a wet spring, it might help getting the soil back to normal conditions."
Gus Wickstrom became famous locally for his pig spleen prognostications. Woodward is his nephew and has carried on the tradition.
"It's a Pagan tradition that's been passed down from generations," Woodward said. "When the old Swedes, that's my relatives, came from Sweden to prepare for winter in the fall, they would look at the pig spleen to see what the winter was going to be like because the spleen had stored some information. The pig was getting prepared for a specific kind of winter. What you do is divide the spleen into 6 equal parts and you look at the fat and fatty deposits on the spleen to see what the weather's going to be. Each segment of the spleen that you divide up represents one month of the year."
The preliminary prognostication was completed on December 23, 2024 in Regina and finalized on the Collier farm south of Gull Lake Saskatchewan.
Woodward posted more details of his forecast on the Pig Spleen Weather Prognostication Facebook page. It included notice of an anomaly on the spleen late in the forecast, probably the end of May or early June. Woodward said that signifies a significant event at that time.