I just don’t get it. This norwester has been howling since late last night, hasn’t let up. Normally a norwester cleans out Beijing’s air, sends all the airborne nastiness down southeast. It was doing that all through this morning, but somehow this afternoon the air has only got greyer. And looking up, as up as I can see from my window, it’s not cloud, or at least, doesn’t look like cloud.
And one more thing about today’s weather I don’t get, but which I’m certainly not complaining about: Normally the norwester noticeably cuts the temperature in our apartment. Today, for some reason I can not fathom, the very modest gains we have made with the last couple of days of warmer less cold [filthy, dirty] breezes from the south and southeast we have managed to hold on to. Like I said, I’m not complaining, because the last norwester left us hovering on 15/16 degrees, and that only just climbed back to 17 last night (let me emphasise those are inside temperatures. The forecast high for today- outside- was minus 7), and it’s somehow holding, but this cold snap is supposed to last a couple more days…
…by which time we’ll be back in Yanqing, of course, and the temperature down here won’t matter a damn, because we’ll be in a situation where you can see your breath inside and some mornings you have to wait until the mop thaws before you mop the floor.
