New Yorkers woke up to near-blizzard conditions as wind-driven snow reduced visibility, made streets nearly impassible and morning commutes a challenge at best.

By the evening commute, however, it's likely that the storm will be winding down, if not completely over, from the city to points west and north of town. Even in the Boston area, where the storm is starting later, snowfall is likely to come to an end before midnight tonight.

It's rare for a snowstorm to hit so intensely, dumping up to a foot or more of snow, yet only last about 6 to 8 hours, and is a testament to the impressive atmospheric dynamics involved with this particular weather system. New York's Central Park picked up 6 inches of snow in just three hours on Thursday morning, with 9 inches falling in the same period of time at nearby La Guardia Airport.

Think of it as the one-night stand (one-day stand?) of snowstorms -- notable and fun while it's happening, but over before you know it.

Outside 30 Rock moments ago pic.twitter.com/NBKnsZC63e

— Bill Karins (@BillKarins) February 9, 2017

As was forecast on Wednesday, the storm that is bringing snowfall rates of 2 to 3 inches per hour to parts of New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island is undergoing a process known as bombogenesis.

This is a fancy meteorology word used to describe storms that intensifies extremely rapidly, or as forecasters would say, such storms "bomb out," with their minimum central air pressure dropping at least 24 millibars in 24 hours.

This storm is likely to exceed that rapid deepening rate, aided by a strong disturbance in the jet stream, clashing air masses and relatively warm Gulf Stream waters off the coast of New England.

#ThunderSnow in Hartford, CT #NBCCT @NBCConnecticut pic.twitter.com/317XcJgEmK

— Todd Lee Conant (@dsgnTLC) February 9, 2017

The reason why this snowstorm is not lasting as long as most longtime residents of the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast might expect has to do with the lack of a weather system over the Canadian Maritimes or North Atlantic to block its eastward movement.

The biggest and longest-lasting snowstorms, including a blizzard that dumped the heaviest amount of snow on record in New York last year, tend to occur when such blocking patterns are in place, prolonging the period in which heavy snow can fall.

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The heavy precipitation rate in a short period of time seen with this storm is consistent with a trend toward more precipitation extremes in recent decades across large parts of the globe, which several studies have tied to human-caused climate change.

Warming seas have put more water vapor into the air to fuel storms of all types, and warmer air holds more moisture as well.

A report released in April 2016 from the nonprofit climate research and journalism group Climate Central found that across the U.S., more than 40 percent of counties have had their biggest 2-day snow totals since 1980. In other words, even though annual snowfall has trended downward in many areas, the snow that does fall tends to come in bigger installments.

In New York City, for example, three of the top five snowstorms of all time have occurred in the past decade.

However, extreme event attribution studies, in which scientists assess the likelihood of a storm such as this one occurring in a world with and without human-caused climate change, and then analyze how the risk of this event has changed, need to be done before saying anything conclusive about a climate change link.