A jet stream roaring across the North Atlantic at more than 200 miles per hour early Thursday morning nearly succeeded in bringing back supersonic air travel for the New York to London route. Several flights from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport made the trip from there to London's Heathrow Airport (from gate to gate) in about five hours and 20 minutes.

British Airways Flight 114, a Boeing 777-200 jet, took off from JFK at 10:50 p.m. ET, and landed at 9:06 a.m. local time, taking just five hours 16 minutes to make a trip that typically takes more than six hours.

Jet stream analysis over the North Atlantic on Jan. 8, 2015, showing the powerful jet stream blowing across the Atlantic. Image: Climate-Reanalyzer

At one point, according to Flight Aware, the jet was traveling at a groundspeed, which is the speed at which the plane is traveling relative to ground level, of 745 miles per hour. For comparison, the speed of sound at sea level is 761 miles per hour.

Image: flightaware.com

In other words, the 777 helped British Airways live up to its legacy of operating the Concorde aircraft on that route until 2003.

(The actual airspeed of the 777 was considerably lower, though, and the plane was traveling within normal design limits, below the speed of sound at altitude, according to Flight Aware data.)

Route of British Airways Flight 114 on Jan. 7 to Jan. 8, 2015. Image: Flightaware.com

The North Atlantic jet stream typically reaches its peak intensity during the winter months, when the temperature contrast between the equator and the North Pole is largest, and such feats of low flying times between JFK and Heathrow tend to occur in January and February. Right now, the jet stream is associated with the return of the polar vortex-related cold across the U.S., with temperatures of nearly minus 40 degrees observed in Maine, and frozen fountains observed in Atlanta, Georgia.

Conversely, the flight back from Europe can be significantly longer due to the headwinds blowing from west to east across the ocean. Particularly in January and February, flights using single-aisle Boeing 757 aircraft can end up requiring an unexpected fuel stop once they near the Canadian Maritimes or New England.

American Airlines flight 121 from Paris to JFK Airport scheduled a fuel stop in Bangor, Maine on Thursday evening, according to FlightAware, after flying up and over Greenland to avoid the rough and tumble headwinds.

Image: Flightaware.com

Such diversions can be costly. In December 2012, United Airlines' 757s had to stop 43 times to refuel out of nearly 1,100 flights headed to the U.S., according to the Wall Street Journal. The reason was an unusually strong jet stream blowing across the North Atlantic. A year earlier, there were only 12 unscheduled stops on about the same number of flights, the paper reported.

Flight path of a British Airways flight from London to New York on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015 Image: Flightaware.com

The 757 has a range of about 4,800 miles, which makes some of the routes between Europe and the U.S. very close to its maximum limit, particularly when there are strong headwinds that lower the groundspeed.

Of course, the Concorde used to fly the route much faster, at speeds of up to 1,350 miles per hour. According to a British Airways fact sheet, its fastest transatlantic crossing was on Feb. 7, 1996, when the New York to London flight took just 2 hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds.

To avoid the 200-mile-per-hour-plus core of the jet stream, where the winds are strongest, flights between the UK and the U.S. have been taking an unusual route, flying closer to Greenland, rather than heading due west across the Atlantic.

British Airways flight 117, a Boeing 747-400, arrived at JFK at 1:31 p.m. ET on Thursday, after a seven hour and 35 minute journey from Heathrow that took the aircraft across the southern tip of Greenland. Typically, flights from the UK to New York cross the Atlantic further to the south, and don't cross Greenland.

The jet stream is helping to spawn a series of storm systems that are barreling into northern UK as well as Ireland, bringing heavy rains and widespread winds of up to 100 miles per hour or greater through Saturday, particularly in northern Scotland, according to the UK Met Office. Dublin Airport in Ireland suspended operations at one point on Thursday night due to high winds there.