Venting on the weather

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Farmer Gus Wickstrom was a renowned pig spleen weather forecaster in the village of Tompkins, Sask., having learned his skills from his Scandinavian grandfather. He died in 2007, but his nephew is carrying on, according to the Globe and Mail.

While the older Wickstrom slaughtered hogs in late fall and examined their organs (divided into six pieces, thickened pieces represented cold months), Jeff Woodward observes pig spleens and issues predictions on New Year's Day. The forecast is recommended for a 200-mile radius from where a pig was grown.

Gus had taken to importing spleens from other parts of the country and made predictions there as well. Jeff does the same. In 2015, he predicted a colder winter for Eastern Canada than for his part of Saskatchewan, which wasn't exactly right. (It was cold all over.) But that didn't hurt sales of T-shirts and logoed sunglasses from his website, www.pigspleen.ca

Woodward is a water quality engineer working for Environment Canada, and plays on that.

"Environment Canada has thousands of dollars' worth of weather instruments and all I have is a $2 pig spleen. I can compete with them and better their accuracy," says the website.BP