Las Cabañuelas Calendar: Which Month Each Day Stands For

What are las cabañuelas?

Las cabañuelas are a piece of Spanish weather folklore. You watch the weather on a set run of days, and each day is said to stand for one month of the year. In much of Spain the count happens in August: the first twelve days are the de ida (outward) days, and the next twelve, the retorneras (return days), run back through the months in reverse. Some places count over Christmas instead, from Santa Lucía (13 December) to Epiphany, while in Latin America the count is done in January.

Which day stands for which month?

There's no single count. Folklorists have recorded at least four ways of counting August, two ways of counting Christmas, and the Latin American January version, which is why the calendar lets you choose:

• 1 August = August (the most widespread). 1–12 August run from August to July, then 13–24 August run back from July to August. So 6 and 19 August both stand for January, and 12 and 13 August for July. Some read the outward days as the first half of each month and the return days as the second half.
• 1 August = January. Used by shepherds in Mazuecos (Guadalajara) and by some in León: 1–12 August are January to December, then 13–24 August run back.
• Ávila and Salamanca. 1 August is the "key" to the whole year; 2–13 August are January to December, and 14–25 August run back.
• Murcia, by fortnights. 1 and 24 August are key days; 2–12 August are the first halves of September to July, and 13–23 August the second halves, from July back to September.
• Christmas. 13–24 December are January to December, then the count runs back to Epiphany. In Oter (Guadalajara) Christmas Day counts, making 1 January stand for May. In León it's skipped, making 1 January June.
• January (Latin America). 1–12 January are January to December, 13–24 January run back, 25–30 January stand for two months each (morning and afternoon), and 31 January is split by the hour.

The fact that one day means four different months depending on the village is a good summary of what las cabañuelas are: a living, local custom, not a single method.

Are they accurate?

There's no evidence that they predict anything. An AEMET spokesperson once called them "the horoscope of the weather", and the agency points out that the atmosphere is chaotic, so uncertainty grows fast beyond about a week to ten days. A small 2010 study at the University of Murcia compared two local cabañuelistas against real observations and found no proven skill. It's a little like Groundhog Day: a much-loved tradition rather than a forecasting tool.

The custom is in the news a lot thanks to Jorge Rey, a young amateur from Monasterio de Rodilla (Burgos) who learned the method from a village shepherd and regularly publishes cabañuelas-based outlooks. We don't repeat anyone's predictions here. If you want an idea of the coming season, AEMET's seasonal outlook gives the probability of the next three months being warmer, colder, wetter or drier than normal, and it's updated every month.

Where does the name come from?

Cabañuela means "little hut". An 18th-century Spanish dictionary links the word to the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, once held in a district of Toledo of that name, but folklorists treat that origin as a plausible theory rather than a fact. The idea that twelve days foretell the twelve months is far older and turns up across Europe.

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