Can planes fly in freezing weather? Yes, at a flying altitude planes experience temperatures of -40C to -57C. Therefore freezing weather on the ground usually doesn't affect airplanes.
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“Jet fuel begins to gel in extreme conditions and does eventually freeze, typically at minus 40 or so, although additives can be included that reduce that further,” says Haines. “Aircraft at cruising altitude will often experience temperatures of minus 50 to minus 70 F for hours on end.”
Heavy snow or blizzards can make landing and taking off too dangerous, while lightning storms can be very hazardous to any aircraft. Extreme heat can also interfere with an aircraft's performance, so in hotter parts of the world, extreme temperatures can cause significant delays.
There is no single maximum wind speed that cancels flights, as it depends on the direction of wind and phase of flight. A crosswind above about 40mph and a tailwind above 10mph can start to cause problems and stop commercial jets from taking off and landing.
Generally airline and passenger/freight carrying operations are suspended during periods of freezing rain. Even without being prohibited by the operators manual, operations in freezing rain are difficult as the applicable Hold-Over Time from an anti-icing treatment is very limiting in freezing rain.
Lenticular and Mammatus Clouds: Avoid the AreaAvoid flying close to lenticular clouds because they are important indicators of localized strong wind and heavy turbulence along mountain ranges.
When a plane flies through a supercooled cloud the disturbance causes droplets to collect on the airplane, and since the water droplets are already supercooled they solidify into ice almost instantly. While flying through a large cloud of supercooled water droplets, an airplane can experience considerable ice buildup.
Can a plane take off in a thunderstorm? Technically, it is possible, but pilots and air traffic experts prefer to keep planes on the ground when a storm is present and wait for it to calm down before setting off.
The only way a small plane hovers is to have the exact same forces acting on the aircraft on all directions while flying. As you may understand, this is completely impossible to happen on an engine airplane. There is no current commercial aircraft that can hover or stand in mid air.
This is why pilots do not choose to fly through clouds if they are avoidable and plan their flight path in order to avoid certain weather patterns involving large and dangerous cloud formations (for larger passenger aircraft this means flying up above the cloud base).
There are strong updrafts and downdrafts embedded within cumulonimbus and cumulus clouds, as opposed to stratocumulus and nimbostratus clouds which have lighter wind currents. When clouds generate showery precipitation, light, moderate, or greater turbulence should be expected.
Private pilots are forbidden from intentionally flying into clouds without an instrument certificate and on an IFR plan. Others may deviate around those “clouds” which display heavy precipitation on their radar but, otherwise, pilots fly their airplanes through clouds all the time.