Is stormy weather the new normal?

I love a good storm.

In Rio, the lightning would split into hundreds of sizzling tendrils and, as the rain came in from the sea, Ipanema and Lagoa would slowly disappear behind a silvery curtain as it swept toward us.

In Kolkata, the lightning was less impressive than the monsoon rains, which would quickly overwhelm the drainage system and for a few hours, return the city to its watery marshland origins.

And in Beirut, rain was frequently preceded by hailstones the size of marbles and the thunder was so loud car alarms would go off, just as they did during Israeli airstrikes.

Here in Beijing, thunderstorms can happen with relatively little rain, but the frequency of lightning — rapid flashes that can continue for half an hour with little pause — is dramatic.

The thing is, I’ve been here for two rainy seasons now, and the first time I noticed was during preparations for the Communist Party of China’s centenary celebration at the National Stadium, in late June. In fact, at first, I wondered if the flashes were fireworks. When I realized they were of celestial origin, I’m not ashamed to say that I bounded around my flat like an over-excited golden retriever, oohing and ahhing.

I felt the same excitement a few nights later, then a couple of nights after that, and then about three or four times a week for much of July and August, though by then, I was jaded, more likely to bound to the fridge for ice cream, than to the window to watch lightning.

But I began to wonder why it had taken me so long to notice. Admittedly, I spent last year in another part of Beijing (deepest Fengtai, if you must know) and I was working nights but even so, I don’t recall seeing much lightning. I do remember a couple of cracking storms, including one that darkened the sky so completely, I had to turn on the lights in the middle of the day, and another so intense, the rain soaked through my umbrella and my raincoat, flooding my backpack and frying my laptop. But lightning? As our American friends say, not so much.

Was this climate change, then? I know that some parts of the country have experienced the kind of rainy season that only happens once in a generation. Hubei province had suffered 108 million yuan ($16.67 million) of damage by mid-August, as reported by China Daily. In Henan province, 20 centimeters of rain fell in one terrible hour. Hundreds of people died, thousands lost their homes and hundreds of thousands were forced to flee the rising floodwaters.

So was this year unusual? Apparently not in Beijing, where according to a report I read, we had more storms, but rainfall remained within seasonal norms. For the most part, colleagues at work concurred.

Obviously, 17 months is not enough time to get a sense of what constitutes normal weather, but I was less convinced. Was it because the terrible flooding in Central China was followed by terrible flooding in Eastern Europe? Was it the later devastation of Haiti and New Orleans by tropical storms, rain falling for the first time in Greenland, or the infernos that reduced vast swathes of California, Greece, Algeria, Turkey and Siberia to ash? I’m not sure, but I find that I’m now wondering about something else: if each year, the weather becomes wilder, how long will it be before we can’t call weather “normal” anymore?

Second Thoughts Warren SinghBartlett