Lorraine Williamson
The Jorge Rey 2026 forecast is already doing the rounds in Spain, boosted by a new YouTube video whose headline is designed to stick. It promises a year of strong snowfalls, late frosts, and a cold Semana Santa — the kind of warning that lands hardest when people are planning spring travel and Easter processions.
That’s the modern Jorge Rey effect. A simple narrative, delivered with confidence, shared at speed.
The new video’s title frames 2026 around three hazards people immediately understand: heavy snow episodes, late frosts, and an Easter cold spell.
In separate reporting published on 30 December 2025, Rey is also linked to a more immediate winter theme: persistent fog, hard frosts, and the risk of cencellada (rime ice), with the suggestion that 2026 could open with colder windows even if rain is limited.
It’s a familiar pattern in his content: fewer big technical caveats, more “here’s what’s coming”.
How he became a household name in Spain
Rey’s rise is a perfect storm of timing and storytelling. He’s young, from Burgos, and speaks in a direct, rural register that feels closer to everyday life than official bulletins.
He is repeatedly described in Spanish media as a social-media weather figure whose forecasts draw wide attention, and he’s often tied — fairly or not — to the idea that he “called” Filomena in advance.
That Filomena claim matters, because it underpins much of his fame. It’s also the point that has attracted the most scrutiny.
What “las cabañuelas” actually is
Cabañuelas aren’t computer models. They’re folk forecasting.
The Royal Spanish Academy defines cabañuelas as a popular calculation based on observing atmospheric changes during the first 12, 18 or 24 days of January or August, used to predict weather for the months of the same year or the next.
In other words, it’s tradition. It grew out of the needs of agricultural Spain. It survives because it offers something modern forecasting rarely gives people: a big-picture story.
The big limitation people forget
Long-range forecasting has a hard edge, even in scientific meteorology. And AEMET is clear about how its seasonal products should be read.
AEMET explains that seasonal predictions are issued as probabilities by terciles (cool/normal/warm; dry/normal/wet), not as precise “a cold week” claims months in advance.
For January–February–March 2026, AEMET’s current seasonal outlook says there is a strong probability that average temperatures fall in the warm tercile across Spain.
That doesn’t rule out cold snaps, snow in mountain systems, or late frosts in inland basins. It means the three-month average is more likely to skew mild overall.
The Filomena question, and why it keeps returning
Rey’s public narrative is often built on the idea that he predicted Filomena. Fact-checkers have challenged that story, arguing that he has not provided solid evidence of making that prediction ahead of time and that some media coverage amplified the claim without proper verification.
That doesn’t stop his videos travelling. But it does change how responsibly an outlet should frame them.
How to read the “snow, frosts and cold Easter” claim
Taken as a theme, it’s not absurd. Late frosts do damage crops. Cold returns in spring. Semana Santa can be wintry in parts of Spain.
The issue is specificity. Without verified detail, the safest editorial line is to treat the headline as a broad-season risk — then tell readers to rely on short-range official warnings when dates get close enough to affect travel, driving, or events.
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