Video Shows Blinding Smoke at LaGuardia Airport During Ground Stop

Flights from and into LaGuardia International Airport remain paused due to low visibility resulting from smoke infiltrating the northeastern air after days of Canadian wildfires.

Live updated video by EarthCam focused on the World Trade Center shows the scene in real-time.

"The FAA has taken steps to manage the flow of traffic into the New York City area due to reduced visibility from wildfire smoke," the Federal Aviation Administration told Newsweek in a statement.

Updated correspondence noted that traffic has purposely been slowed to and from the New York City area airports due to reduced visibility, adding "The agency will adjust the volume of traffic to account for the rapidly changing conditions."

All inbound flights into LaGuardia are being held until 2:15 p.m. today, though that number has continually extended, according to flight tracking and data platform Flight Aware. Arrival delays for airborne aircraft are 16 to 30 minutes and increasing, and departure delays are 31 to 45 minutes and increasing due to low visibility.

There were 1,628 flight delays at time of publication.

Newark International Airport in New Jersey also is experiencing paused flights delayed an average of 1 hour, 22 minutes and counting.

A spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey told Newsweek that it had no further information on delays and when operations could potentially continue again, referring to the FAA for specific details.

"Current wall of smoke on vis satellite that has turned our skies smoky orange and has prompted ground stops at Newark/EWR and LaGuardia/LGA due to poor visibility concerns," tweeted Bobby Martrich of EPAWA Weather Consulting. "Orange is smoke, not clouds. Cumulus has formed ahead of the boundary, but not where the smoke is at all."

A tweet posted by Morning Brew, showing a still image of New York Harbor at 12:51 p.m., describes the scene as "dystopian."

Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci tweeted a side-by-side image of the New York City skyline at 9 a.m. and 1:40 p.m., the latter photo showing practically no visibility. He said .75 miles is as far as the eyes can currently see.

The wildfires in Canada have been taking place for days, spreading across Nova Scotia on Canada's eastern coast and moving through the Halifax Regional Municipality.

Smoke has hit Western and Central New York the hardest, including cities like New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Binghamton and Syracuse. It has led to dramatic drops in air quality levels, spreading across the region to impact major cities including Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.