One unreported calamity caused by Hurricane Sandy was the pandemic of weather puns it provoked in current affairs reporting, as the world’s least inspired journalists vied for the least original headlines, with travesties ranging from “Whirlwind Campaigns Even More Turbulent” to “Climate Change’s Moment in the Sun”.

In fact, natural disasters have a history of forecasting political upheaval. The deaths of Chairman Mao and his number two, Zhou Enlai came mere months either side of last century’s deadliest quake, which struck Tangshan in 1976. Volcanoes and earthquakes, such as Sparta’s in 464 BC, have even been described as the agents of subsequent political changes by geologists like Jelle Zeilinga de Boer.

Do these links between the political and the meteorological deserve greater attention? Surely Britain’s moderate politics organically derive from the temperate weather of these grey isles. Smoggy spells forecasted for Beijing can only point towards many more years of obscure, predictable politics in China.

Of course, there are certain tangible political consequences to bad weather: Hurricane Sandy provided a surprise test of crisis management skills for the two presidential candidates, and has led to cancelled campaigning and voting complications. The Journal of Politics has estimated that poor weather doesn’t only affect voter turnout but tends to benefit the Republicans by up to 2.5% per inch of rain.

The use of weather patterns as an index of political change may warrant some suspicion.  It is perhaps more important to consider the political decisions of China and the USA this week, than to think about the weather.

Tomorrow, the scene will be set for anticipated shifts in the global pecking order. We know already that China will top GDP tables before 2020 while America and her allies face their bleak economies. Projections of China’s increased hard power will not only come to be relevant to the next presidency but possibly also within either a second Romney tenure or an extended Democrat leadership under Hilary Clinton. Tuesday’s election may choose the administration which will have to endure America’s being economically outmanoeuvred by China.

The future of China-US relations is yet to be determined. Beijing is unlikely to break with the cooperative-but-critical approach to its indispensable partner (either American candidate will stay committed to an increased military presence in Asia). But should Romney get his chance to charge China with “cheating” on currency valuation, the trans-Pacific climate might take a turn for the worse.

Stark differences in government systems will gradually be brought into focus. Presidential elections are great at exhibiting the major drawbacks of the world’s oldest democracy, which are not limited to the worsening polarisation of US society, months of wasted time and media coverage, and total costs of $6 billion (say BBC estimates).

Perhaps, as economist Martin Jacques argues, China’s voting system is more legitimate. Reliable polls taken by Harvard and Pew Global Attitudes have indicated that around 90% of Chinese are satisfied with their central government (although the extent to which those polled might be fearful of saying otherwise is unclear), compared with 25% of Americans. More fundamentally, the validity of one-size-fits-all, Western-style democracy is being faced with increasing levels of doubt.

Recent meteorological events have rather plainly emphasised the importance of climate change in what will happen next. Disasters such as Sandy have been labelled ‘climate porn’ for environmental activists. The experience of houses being washed away – perhaps the modern-day, materialist equivalent of iconoclasm – could be distressing enough to provoke even the most stubborn deniers or the most hardened party loyalists.

As a country not yet considered ‘developed’, which produces a quarter of the planet’s CO2 emissions, the environmental concerns surrounding China are more pertinent still.

China’s course is notoriously difficult to predict, and as the world is increasingly impacted by China, this unpredictability may begin to permeate outwards. It would be naïve to forecast Sino-American rainbows, equally, trans-Pacific tempests are by no means an inevitability.

Nevertheless, it will likely be upon those vast and murky waters that the ageing overlord of planet earth suffers a sea-change, one of political, economic, environmental, ideological, global and totally unprecedented proportions. For the winds of change have begun to blow, and their direction is east.