Every year on the evening of 24 January in the central Italian town of Urbania, local schoolteacher Emanuela Forlini cuts a yellow onion into quarters. She then separates out 12 wedges that will form the basis of her local weather predictions for the year ahead. She lays out a slice for each month of the year on her kitchen chopping board, the first representing January, the second February and so on through December. 

Sprinkling each piece with a generous pinch of salt, she leaves the board on her windowsill, facing east, and goes to bed. As the first rays of sun appear on the 25th, with her notebook and pen in hand, she interprets each sacred slice, looking for signs supposedly sent by a saint in the salt's reaction with the onion – are the wedges wet or dry, the salt caked or dissolved?