The fun is over, with a new batch of smog predicted to hit the Beijing-Hebei-Tianjin area starting on Tuesday, the South China Morning Postcites the environment ministry as saying. This prediction also dismissed rumors that the pollution might be linked to nuclear radiation.

The new smog cloud is expected to cover the middle and southern parts of Beijing-Hebei-Tianjin as well as parts of Shandong, Shanxi, and Henan provinces until Thursday, when cold fronts will once again blow away pollution.

Along with these predictions come a new platform: the website of thenational environmental monitoring center which gives 24-hour and 48-hour forecasts for 31 of China’s cities.

Our go-to pollution prediction app AirVisual doesn't have this pollution front on their radar yet, indicting "yellow" levels of pollution through to Wednesday with an increase to "orange" on Thursday, so we’re going to keep our fingers crossed and hope that they are right.

The same goes for aqicn.org, whose predictions don't support the government's pollution prediction. The pollution appears to stay underneath Beijing (sorry Shanghai).

Aqcast again supports this hypothesis, as it puts the highest predicted AQI levels at 180 on Saturday January 16, with nothing to worry about until Friday January 15.

Ultimately, it seems like this will be a test on which predictors are more reliable. If the pollution does hit us yet again, this seems just one more step closer to an imminent permanent odd-even license plate regulation for the rest of winter. Rumors of such a policy were all over Chinese social media just last week. Either way, we're expecting a clear weekend with the first annual AIIB meeting hitting up the 'Jing, Saturday, January 16 through Monday, January 18.

By Margaux Schreurs
Images: AirVisual, gdnonline.com, aqicn, aqcast