Nor'easters are usually formed by an area of vorticity associated with an upper level disturbance or from a kink in a frontal surface that causes a surface low pressure area to develop. Such storms often move slowly in their latter, frequently intense, mature stage.

Until the nor'easter passes, thick dark clouds often block out the sun. During a single storm, the precipitation can range from a torrential downpour to a fine mist. Low temperatures and wind gusts of up to 90 miles per hour are also associated with a nor'easter. On very rare occasions, such as the North American blizzard of 2006, and a nor'easter in 1979, the center of the storm can even take on the circular shape more typical of a hurricane and have a small eye.

So if this storm winds up as a cyclonic, extratropical depression resulting in strong winds coming from the northeast and dumping a lot of precipitation on us, then it's a "nor'easter." or is it?

It just so happens that there is some controversy surrounding the pronunciation and spelling of this New England phenomenon. Also from the same Wikipedia article...

...it has been asserted by some that "nor'easter" as a contraction for "northeaster" has no basis in regional New England dialect and is a "fake" word, which is a parochial view that neglects the little-known etymology and the historical maritime usage described above.

Common coastal New England pronunciation (both seafaring and not) for "nor'easter" is “naw-THEE-stuh” (like "LOB-stah" for "lobster"). According to a handful of 20th-century, Maine-based authors, Downeast mariners historically pronounced the compass point "north northeast" as "no'nuth-east," and so on. For decades, Edgar Comee, of Brunswick, Maine, waged a determined battle against use of the term "nor’easter" by the press, which usage he considered “a pretentious and altogether lamentable affectation” and “the odious, even loathsome, practice of landlubbers who would be seen as salty as the sea itself”. His efforts, which included mailing hundreds of postcards, were profiled, just before his death at the age of 88, in The New Yorker.[1]

Despite the efforts of Mr. Comee and others, use of the term continues by the press. According to Boston Globe writer Jan Freeman, “from 1975 to 1980, journalists used the nor'easter spelling only once in five mentions of such storms; in the past year (2003), more than 80 percent of northeasters were spelled nor'easter”.[2]

University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor Mark Liberman has pointed out that while the OED cites examples dating back to 1837, they represent the contributions of a handful of non-New England poets and writers. Liberman posits that "nor’easter" may have originally been a literary affectation, akin to "e'en" for "even" and "th'only" for "the only", which is an indication in spelling that two syllables count for only one position in metered verse, with no implications for actual pronunciation.

So the next time you hear a weatherman or your neighbors referring to a little extra snow as a "nor'easter," whack them on the head with your snow shovel and tell them to stop belittling the real nor'easters by throwing the term around so cavalierly. Then accuse them of being poseur flatlanders for pronouncing it like that. Thank you, Wikipedia. Those Middlebury College people are crazy.