Affected by a spell of smoggy weather, the city's air quality deteriorated again yesterday, with widespread heavy pollution in urban areas. This marks the fourth time this month that smog has plagued the capital.
Throughout yesterday, visibility in the city remained poor. The municipal meteorological observatory issued a yellow alert for haze at 11 a.m., followed by a yellow alert for dense fog at 5 p.m., warning residents of poor visibility and air quality across the city, and advising them to minimize outdoor activities.
The city's environmental monitoring center also reported via its official Weibo account that PM2.5 levels were high across all districts, with most areas reaching Level 5, or severe, air pollution. By 4 p.m., except for relatively lower concentrations in the northwest, most regions showed high PM2.5 readings, generally between 200 to 300 micrograms per cubic meter. Due to stable atmospheric conditions and high humidity, air quality is not expected to improve significantly in the coming days.
At 5 p.m., reporters checked the air quality release platform and found that among the city’s 35 monitoring stations, excluding three with missing data, 28 had reached Level 5, or severe, air pollution. All 12 stations in urban areas and five traffic-related stations were in the severe pollution category, while only three or four stations in the northeast and northwest registered Level 3, or light, pollution.
Many residents have noticed that the recent frequent bouts of smog have been most severe in the eastern and southern parts of the city. Often, when visibility in urban areas reaches one kilometer, places like Daxing and Yizhuang see visibility drop to less than 500 meters or even 100 meters. Meteorologists explain that this is due to Beijing’s northwest-high and southeast-low terrain, where the eastern and southern areas are low-lying with higher humidity, making fog more likely. Historical meteorological data shows that areas such as Daxing, Tongzhou, Chaoyang, and Fengtai experience over 17 foggy days a year, with some years seeing more than 35. The Beijing South Suburban Observatory, located near the southeastern Fifth Ring Road, has recorded up to 51 foggy days in certain years. In contrast, fog days are significantly fewer in the western and northern plains, averaging around 10 per year.
Forecasts indicate that the city will continue to experience smoggy weather over the next three days. It is not until the night of Thursday, when cold air arrives bringing northerly winds of force four to five, that the stubborn smog is expected to dissipate, finally giving the capital a blue sky.