By Roberta Rampton <p>WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - After examining 31 pig spleens, Canadian farmer Gus Wickstrom is sure of his six-month forecast for southwest Saskatchewan: snowstorms, mild spells and May rains. <p>The retired farmer from Tompkins, Saskatchewan, is one of a handful of people on the Prairies who forecasts the weather by examining the spleen of a freshly slaughtered pig . <p>"I look at it, I feel it with my fingers," Wickstrom told Reuters on Monday, explaining that depressions and fatty deposits on the 60-centimetre (2-foot) long organ tell him what the weather will be like, and when. <p>The forecast is accurate for a 320-kilometre (200-mile) radius around where the pig was slaughtered, more than 80 percent of the time, he said. <p> "I'm right up there with (national forecast service) Environment Canada," Wickstrom said. "Lots of times they're not correct at all." <p> The 64-year-old has been reading spleens for more than two decades, carrying on a tradition his great-great-grandfather brought to Canada from Sweden. <p> When Western Canada was first settled, farmers would gather when weather turned cold to butcher hogs for the winter, and amuse themselves with spleen forecasts, Wickstrom explained. ...
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