Growing up in 91原创, I could look north in mid-summer, and there was still usually a bit of snow left on Golden Ears, especially between the peaks, where the shadows lingered.

Over the past 20 years, there鈥檚 been less and less snow every summer, sometimes disappearing by the end of spring.

It鈥檚 a personal marker of climate change for me.

Of course, this year, the snow held on a lot longer than has been usual of late.

By this time last year, we had already been through months of above-average temperatures, and were about to be hammered with the heat dome that would kill hundreds of people. I recall stepping out of the office onto the parking lot and feeling the heat on the surface of my eyeballs.

This year, we got the opposite. Instead of heat, we鈥檝e got below-average temps. Instead of crops literally cooking on the vine, we鈥檙e worried it鈥檚 too cold and damp for much to grow.

A powerful La Nina system is dumping cool and wet weather on us.

But this is closer to 鈥渘ormal鈥� weather for the coast than what we鈥檝e experienced for the last 20 years.

Go back to the late 19th and early 20th century, and things really were cooler. According to provincial data, B.C. is up about 1.4掳C per century since 1900. Winters in particular are milder, rising 2.2掳C on average, with variations across the province.

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Meanwhile, the region that includes the Lower Mainland has seen a 14 per cent increase in precipitation.

That data is a few years old. After the roller-coaster of the past two years, with its record-breaking heat, cold, and rain coming on each other鈥檚 heels, they might have to update the charts a bit.

We鈥檙e seeing more extremes in B.C., it seems. When it鈥檚 dry and hot, it鈥檚 going to set off forest fires and heat alerts, when it鈥檚 cold and wet, it鈥檚 going to soak and chill us even more.

Yet I can鈥檛 help but notice that the weather this year isn鈥檛 all bad.

Not great for a lot of berry crops, sure, awful for orchards, probably pretty crummy for potatoes.

But mild temperatures and plenty of rain are pretty good for a lot of native plants. The weather we鈥檝e had this year is closer to the what was normal for this area before humans started burning coal and oil on a massive scale a century and a half ago.

But there is no normal, not anymore.

This year might be followed by one that鈥檚 hot and dry. Or cool and dry, or hot with sudden storms. Maybe we鈥檒l get a typhoon next, or another tornado like the waterspout last year that touched down just off of UBC.

If we knew what was normal, we might be able to better plan for the future, for our forest fire prevention needs, for agriculture, for flood prevention and disaster response.

But we broke normal. Climate change isn鈥檛 some abstract thing that鈥檚 going to happen in the future, it鈥檚 here now.

The weather we grew up with wasn鈥檛 quite normal. Our future weather will be even less so.