Who needs weather satellites when you have pig spleens?

The Pig Spleen Forecast for 2023 has been conducted by Jeff Woodward, a professional pig spleen prognosticator. His family has been doing these forecasts ever since his Grandparents immigrated from Sweden. 

"I think my grandfather would do it as sort of a joke when he was a farmer in southwest Saskatchewan," said Woodward. "My uncle saw them doing this and then when he retired he decided that he was going to take it up in earnest. He gained a lot of notoriety when he made some predictions that came true."

This forecast, while certainly different, has been noted as fairly accurate over the years. While it may not have a scientific background, the results are hard to argue with. 

For 2023, the forecast utilized several pig spleens donated from the Cobbler Farm near Gull Lake, and from the Earview Hutterite Colony. 

"Over the past few years, these spleens have proven to be valuable specimens for weather predictions," Woodward said in his forecast. "The spleen donations are greatly appreciated."

The bigger the spleens, the more information they can offer. Woodward browses through the selection donated to him, seeing how the pigs were preparing for the year to come. 

"Originally the spleens had a lot of fat, like a lot of both temperature and precipitation were showing up as information," explained Woodward. "I originally thought it could be lots of snow and cold, but I think what it's telling us is more that it's going to be really variable temperatures and still quite a bit more snow than average. That's what all the spleens we're saying, is more precipitation than average and highly variable temperatures."

You can view the full Pig Spleen Forecast for 2023 here.