Today we had a very odd storm. We went to the office this morning and it was sprinkling. We knew the weather was forecasted to rain, but it turned out to be nothing like what we expected. Every morning we have a Chinese lesson at the office from 10-12. While in class, the sprinkling rain turned into a downpour. After a few minutes, the sky turned eerily greenish/yellowish. Naturally (all three of us being from Southwest Michigan), we started thinking about tornados. We told our tutor why we looked a little concerned (we were on the 7th floor surrounded by windows). She had no idea what a tornado was. We explained as best as we could—wind spinning around really, really quickly, picking things off the ground and throwing them into the air. We also drew a picture of a tornado. She agreed that it was a scary thing! But there is no such thing in Beijing.
After the sky looking the way it does before a tornado, the sky turned eerily dark. It looked like it was late evening. The rain kept coming down. The thunder was so loud it started a bunch of car alarms. People were darting the lightning bolts—not quite, but Lorraine said she was watching out for lightning while walking down the streets at this time. It was a crazy storm! I really wish I could have watched more of it, but unfortunately my back was to the window. After an hour or so, the storm started to let up.
Because of the storm, we had an unusually cool day today—maybe 65-70 degrees. Wayne told us that even though there will be many storms this summer, it is most likely we will not have another cool day like today. It was a nice change!
