Are incoming flights to Phoenix Sky Harbor currently delayed due to low clouds or fog?

1. What the airport and local outlets say right now

Local coverage on Nov. 18 reports Sky Harbor had “more than 90 flight delays” and that a ground delay advisory was in effect because of low ceilings, warning travelers to expect an average delay of about 40 minutes (12 News) ^[1]. The airport’s public-facing flight-status pages and advisories are routinely cited by outlets for these notices; Sky Harbor’s own delay/cancellation page notes weather or other conditions can affect flights and points to FAA maps for delay status ^[4]. This is the most direct, contemporaneous reporting available in the current corpus ^{[1] [4]}.

2. How “low ceilings,” fog and rain are described by reporters and the FAA

News stories and FAA advisories use the specific term “low ceilings” to describe clouds near runway level that can slow arrivals and force ground delays; outlets repeatedly link low cloud ceilings and foggy mornings to flight slowdowns at Sky Harbor in prior incidents (12 News, AZFamily, KJZZ, AZCentral) ^{[1] [5] [6] [7]}. In other reporting, the FAA explicitly issued ground stops or advisories when visibility and ceiling conditions deteriorated (examples cited across the archive) ^{[8] [9]}. Therefore, “low clouds or fog” is the operational language used by both journalists and aviation agencies to explain weather-related delays ^{[1] [7] [9]}.

3. Recent pattern: weather plus staffing pressures

While Nov. 18’s advisory ties the immediate delay to rain and low ceilings ^[1], broader reporting from November shows a parallel source of disruption: FAA capacity reductions and ground delays triggered by controller and staffing shortages amid the federal shutdown, which produced hundreds of delays and phased flight reductions at Sky Harbor earlier in November (AZCentral, AZ Family, Visaverge, AZCentral live updates) ^{[2] [10] [11] [12]}. Those staffing-related actions have sometimes produced larger aggregate delay counts (hundreds) and partial airport closures that affected operations separately from weather ^{[11] [10]}.

4. What travelers should check and why numbers differ

Delay totals fluctuate by time of day and by the data source (airport list, FlightAware, local aggregation). For example, FlightAware snapshots on earlier dates showed dozens to more than 100 delayed flights depending on the day (AZCentral live pieces), while local TV outlets reported several-hundred delays on certain weather-impacted mornings ^{[3] [12] [6]}. Travelers should check (a) their airline’s flight status, (b) Sky Harbor’s official delay/cancellation list, and (c) FAA NAS dashboard or FlightAware for near‑real‑time status because the cause (weather vs. staffing capacity) can change hour-to-hour ^{[4] [13] [12]}.

5. Competing explanations and why both matter

Sources present two distinct — and sometimes overlapping — explanations: immediate meteorological impacts (low clouds, fog, rain) that reduce ceiling/visibility and slow arrival rates, and operational capacity reductions tied to air traffic controller staffing that impose flight caps or closures. Nov. 18 reporting points to weather (low ceilings/rain) as the proximate cause of the ground delay advisory ^[1]; earlier November reporting documents FAA-imposed capacity limits and closures that produced widespread delays unrelated to weather ^{[2] [11]}. Both mechanisms can operate together: weather reduces runway throughput and an already‑constrained system from staffing limits amplifies delays ^{[2] [1]}.

6. Limitations and what’s not in current reporting

Available sources confirm a Nov. 18 ground delay tied to low ceilings and rain and document separate staffing-driven capacity cuts in early-to-mid November, but they do not provide minute-by-minute air traffic control logs, precise runway visual ranges, or an FAA statement explicitly quantifying how much of Nov. 18’s delay minutes were due to staffing versus weather ^{[1] [2] [11]}. If you need a definitive, live operational cause for a specific incoming flight, the airlines and the FAA NAS dashboard are the authoritative, real‑time sources ^{[13] [4]}.

Bottom line: Current reporting for Nov. 18 attributes the incoming-flight delays chiefly to rain and low cloud ceilings (a ground delay averaging ~40 minutes), though the airport has also been operating under recent FAA capacity constraints from staffing issues that have amplified delays on other days ^{[1] [2] [11]}.