Meaning
An unusually bad or volatile situation produced when several problems or forces, each manageable on its own, coincide; the rare combination, not any single factor, does the damage. Also used more loosely, and often clichédly, of any cluster of difficulties. Neutral but heavily used in journalism and business talk, to the point where style guides call it a cliché. Regional use: General English.
Origin
Not a 1990s coinage. The Oxford English Dictionary has citations from 1718, when perfect meant 'complete' (a 'perfect storm' of applause), and the first meteorological use came on 20 March 1936, when the Port Arthur News of Texas quoted the Weather Bureau calling a flood-causing disturbance 'the perfect storm' of its type. Sebastian Junger then popularised it: his 1997 book The Perfect Storm, about the 1991 Halloween nor'easter that sank the fishing boat Andrea Gail, took the phrase from retired forecaster Bob Case's description of a rare convergence of weather systems, and the 2000 film adaptation made it ubiquitous. Use intensified from the 2008 financial crisis, and Lake Superior State University put it at the top of its 2007 list of banished words. Junger's role was popularisation, not invention.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a perfect political storm
- a perfect storm of circumstances
- perfect-storm conditions
- the perfect storm
Usage Examples
- The airline failed because of a perfect storm: rising fuel costs, a pilots' strike and a currency collapse all in one season.
- Analysts warned that the drought, the export ban and the rail strike were converging into a perfect storm for grain prices.
- Her resignation was a perfect storm of bad timing, leaked emails and a hostile press.