Sting jet

Uncommon card · No. 112476

A sting jet is a narrow, transient and mesoscale airstream that descends from the mid-troposphere to the surface in some extratropical cyclones. When present, sting jets produce some of the strongest surface-level winds in extratropical cyclones and can generate damaging wind gusts in excess of 50 m/s (180 km/h; 110 mph). Sting jets are short-lived, lasting on the order of hours, and the area subjected to their strong winds is typically no wider than 100 km (62 mi), making their effects highly localised. Studies have identified sting jets in mid-latitude cyclones primarily in the northern Atlantic and western Europe, though they may occur elsewhere. The storms that produce sting jets have tended to follow the Shapiro–Keyser model of extratropical cyclone development. Among these storms, sting jets tend to form following a storm's highest rate of intensification. Sting jets were first formally identified in 2004 by Keith Browning at the University of Reading in an analysis of the great storm...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Peter A. Clark, Suzanne L. Gray, CC BY 4.0