A sting jet can have quite the “sting” if you happen to be impacted by one. It is a feature associated with a strong low pressure system located offshore. The area called the sting jet, or also known as poisonous tail (because of the resemblance of a scorpion’s tail), is located in the very center of the low where very intense winds form, you can spot it from the image above where the clouds are wound up very tight.

This narrow corridor of the storm’s center can produce winds topping 100mph. The sting jet has been known to cause damage from toppled trees to structural damage as they encounter land. These features are small, but mighty - only stretching about 30 miles across on average.

The National Weather Service (NWS) office in Seattle posted a photo of a classic sting jet on X as last week’s atmospheric river pushed onshore.

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This segment originally appeared in today's edition of the Morning Brief newsletter. Sign up here to get weekday updates from The Weather Channel and our meteorologists.

J​ennifer Gray is a weather and climate writer for weather.com. She has been covering some of the world's biggest weather and climate stories for the last two decades.