We may be enjoying a streak of clear skies and low AQI in Beijing but, along with death and taxes, there is one other certainty in life – the smog will return.
The pollution apps that most of us rely on (mainly as a reminder of how much we are damaging ourselves) provide an invaluable service. If the AQI is 500 outside, it’s great to know so that I can stay inside strapped to an air purifier. But that’s a bit like finding out there’s going to be a thunderstorm via the fact that your barbeque has been extinguished. It’s normally a bit too late to be helpful.
What if I need to know whether tomorrow will be clear for that hypothetical cycle ride I’ve been planning?
Now there’s an app to help – Beijing Smogcast. Created by geochemist Dustin Grzesik, who used Beijing’s weather patterns to create a predictive forecast, the app tells you when to expect the next bout of clean air. It’s about as simple as you can get (it merely tells you when the next clear day and morning will be) and the three-sentence summary is as straightforward as the one you can find Banshirne website (see screenshot above).
Continue reading on beijing-kids.com.
Quote:Now if the makers have some kind of insight into factory closings or openings, it might be worth it,
That would definitely be useful. I'd also like to see an app that shows me which factories are the worst culprits and just how much pollution they are causing.
Jerry Chan, Digital Marketing & Content Strategy Director
If you check the weather at all, you're getting a wind forcast. You may have just never looked for it. Even if you just google "Beijing weather' the forcast, including wind, pops right up at the top. It shows you temp by default, but you just click the wind button prominently displayed to see the hourly wind forcast for up to a week. Usually pretty accurate. Also, as Britomart says, any weather app has it as well.
This pollution forcast app is fine, but I'm not sure that "step in the right direction" is what I'd call it. It's just another thing to clutter up my iPad, when I'm perfectly capable of forcasting the pollution with little to know effort. Now if the makers have some kind of insight into factory closings or openings, it might be worth it, but otherwise it's really not necessary. Fine, nothing wrong with it, just not necessary unless you want another thing on your device.
Most weather apps already include wind, both direction and speed. My basic Weather.com app has it. As long as you know that stronger winds from the north mean it's CLEAN, stronger winds from the south mean SMOG, you've got it.
Doubt wisely; in strange way / To stand inquiring right is not to stray; / To sleep, or run wrong, is. (Donne, Satire III)
Sure that's a good point bluefish, but personally I'm not getting wind forecasts for tomorrow as part of my regular news diet.
This app may not be perfect but its a step in the right direction
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There's no need for an app for this. You too can do it, provided you have a brain.
If the wind is or is forcasted to begin blowing from the north or northeast, the smog will clear out. A wind of less than 7mph is not sufficient to get the smog much below 250. Once it gets beyond 9mph the smog will clear fairly well.
It takes approximately 1-2 hours for E or SE or SW wind to blow the smog back in.
This is an almost foolproof method of predicting the smog levels for a week at a time. I haven't been wrong yet this year, telling people which days of the week they can count on clearing skies. The only time you cannot count on this is during the spring sand storms, when winds from the west are as likely to bring in sand as they are to clear out smog.
In the end, very little else matters. Taking cars off the street or closing down a few factories doesn't do much of anything, unless taken to the extreme: i.e. every factory for miles closed down for days at time. These kinds of measures-absent a change in wind-can only mean a difference between a high of 400 and a high of 300, which ultimately doesn't make much difference to how you're going to live your life. All that matters is the wind.
And of course shutting down outdoor BBQs is pretty much the equivalent of treating that cancerous mole by putting some bacitracin on it and covering it with a bandaide.
Wind people. That's all you need to know.
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