It's a bright and sunny day in Gobbler's Knob, Pennsylvania, which means that when Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his hole this morning and saw his shadow, we were all doomed to six more weeks of winter. I'm not sure how much stock I put in the prognostications of groundhogs, woodchucks, whistle-pigs or whatever you want to call them. Even certified meteorologists have expressed amazement at our cool summer, frigid October, warm winter and blizzard-filled December and January.

Maybe we should turn to onions. Today's Yankton Press & Dakotan carries a story about Ken Peters of Scotland, who uses onions to predict precipitation in each month of 2010. The process is somewhat elaborate: select a large, South Dakota-grown onion and peel 12 sections representing each month. You have to do it on Christmas Eve at 4 p.m. (there's no telling what mayhem might ensue if the onion is sliced earlier or later). Then put table salt on each section and let it sit for two hours. If the salt remains dry, the month will experience below-normal precip. If the salt is wet, the month will be too.

Peters says onion forecasts were popular among Czech old-timers in this part of the state. But a few years ago we found retired county agent Joe Schuch predicting the weather with onions in Sisseton. He cut his between 11 p.m. and midnight on Christmas Eve, so there must be a little wiggle room.

Peters says his onion forecasts have been 75 to 80 percent accurate, so maybe you don't want to rely solely on them, but they do make a nice complement to groundhogs and weathermen.