The End of Summer

Beijing's seasons are uncannily, almost metronomically regular - at least in their moments of transition, if not so much in their subsequent course.

The onset of autumn, in particular, seems to happen each year with absolute reliability at the beginning of September. This year, in fact, it seems to have come just a little early: we usually have to wait a few days into the month, sometimes even a week or so, before we get the break in the weather; I can't recall it ever happening at the end of August before.

But that's what we have. Friday and Saturday were as horribly humid as ever (although Saturday evening was so surprisingly cool that it was survivable without air-conditioning: a promising omen), and Sunday dawned fairly dismally, with a thick white haze. But, what do you know, a fresh breeze out of the east soon cleared all the fug away, and by 9am or so we had a dazzlingly clear sky. Yesterday was one of the most perfect days you could imagine for Beijing. Today looks like being the same; and the 5-day forecast - if such things can be believed - says it's going to be much the same all week.

September is always like this, consistently the best month to be in Beijing. It is perhaps more 'late summer' than autumn. The leaves won't start turning in colour till the end of the month. It's still quite hot during the day (often into the 80s Fahrenheit), though less fiercely so than in high summer; there's been a sudden drop of 5-10 degrees in the daytime highs. It's much cooler at night, but far from chilly.

The best thing is the sudden, emphatic dissipation of the stifling humidity that plagues us through June-August. We just don't get that in September. Woo-hoo.

Also, it looks as though the weather-control machine has been tweaked again (i.e., all the nearby factories have been closed down once more, in preparation for the start of the Paralympics at the end of this week): not only are the skies clear, but the air is clean too. Bliss.

I think I'd better go for a run......

And why, oh why, oh why couldn't they have staged the main Summer Olympics in the first two weeks of September? The conditions would have been perfect.