One interesting thing about this storm is that after it pulled offshore this morning the storm began rapid intensification and formed something known as a “Sting Jet”. This did happen over water and in North America this practically never affects land outside of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and they are rare, but in the North Atlantic on the European side they are at times affected severely by Sting Jets especially in the UK.A Sting Jet is associated with rapid intensification of extratropical storms in the mid-latitudes and sustained winds can in fact reach hurricane force when this occurs. As the cold air from the northwest quadrant starts to rapidly encircle the low’s strengthening circulation the air accelerates as it sinks towards the surface creating a very focused area of extreme winds. This does dissipate in intensity as the storm’s rapid intensification diminishes though the winds generally remain strong for a period of time.We’ve seen some meteorologists and hobbyists call this a “Snow Hurricane” or a “Snowicane”, but that’s an entirely made up term designed to create fear and get them attention. This is merely a Sting Jet and they should use the proper meteorological term and clarify that this is only an issue for boats.This storm is in fact one of the most rapidly intensifying winter storms we have seen in the Atlantic due to the way it formed (which we covered in our Storm Watch earlier last week), but this occurs away from land and for the most part only the Outer Banks of North Carolina is being affected with high winds and blowing snow after the surface low formed.
News to me. I never heard of it before. There was something that looked like this over NS in the snow Feb 1 but unlikely that was it.