Term has been around a while

“The term was originally coined by researchers Reginald Newell and Yong Zhu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1990s to reflect the narrowness of the moisture plumes involved.”

.But yes, I guess the news has started using it more now.

This link explains it pretty well. It’s a specific thing, in terms of size, impact, etc, and is occurring much more, and in much larger size, as climate change moves along.