"Isn't a nor'easter a winter storm? How's it happening in September?"

If you’re thinking it’s too early for a nor’easter, you’d be right.

The peak time for nor’easters and coastal storms in general is January to March when there is a strong jet stream, plentiful cold air from Canada and often a strong high pressure system over New England or eastern Canada.

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But sometimes, those ingredients come into play earlier in the season. That’s what happened this week.

We’ve got all of those ingredients coming together across the Northeast for a storm system just off the Carolina and Jersey coasts through this weekend.

This early season formation means that the storm won’t have snow, but the wind it does produce will have to fight with leaves that are still on the trees across much of the Northeast. That means that there will likely be more wind damage now than there would be this winter.

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One other difference is that “cooler” air is all relative. Storms like this one feed on the difference in temperature between the warm Gulf Stream current and the cooler Canadian air. The Gulf Stream current is just coming off of its warmest all season and the first good push of – dare I call it – chilly air? This makes just enough of a difference to fuel this weekend’s nor’easter.

This system will be more akin to a wind storm that you would see in Europe than a winter storm with snow and ice that you would see in the Northeast or elsewhere across the country a few months from now.

Jonathan Belles has been a digital meteorologist for weather.com for 10 years. His favorite weather is tropical weather, but also enjoys covering high-impact weather and news stories and winter storms. He's a two-time graduate of Florida State University and a proud graduate of St. Petersburg College.