And Finally...

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.