Earlier today, Mark MacKinnon, senior international correspondent Canada's Globe and Mail, tweeted an image showing just how welcoming Beijing was at noon.

It appears that thanks to a combination of stormy weather and the Chinese capital's notorious smog problem, Beijing at 12pm was looking a little more like Beijing at 12am.

Shanghaiist also has a great photo of the city's dark skyline:

Storm meets smog as Beijing goes dark at noon: shst.me/6g5 twitter.com/shanghaiist/st… — Shanghaiist.com (@shanghaiist) June 4, 2013

Other photos posted to Weibo are just as remarkable:

A Twitter account run by the US Embassy in Beijing reported that China's air quality was at "unhealthy" levels at noon — actually quite good for the city. And while today's phenomenon seems to be a rare combination of elements, over the past year there has been growing concern about the level of air pollution in China — at points recorded air pollution levels have reached 40 times the standard set by the World Health Organization.