Perfect storm

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Satellite image of northeast U.S. coast on November 1, 1991. Depicted is the 1991 Perfect Storm. 12L 1991-11-01 1900Z.png
Satellite image of northeast U.S. coast on November 1, 1991. Depicted is the 1991 Perfect Storm.

A perfect storm is a meteorological event aggravated by a rare combination of circumstances. [1] The term is used by analogy to an unusually severe storm that results from a rare combination of meteorological phenomena.

Contents

Before the early 1990s, the phrases "storm of the century" or "perfect storm" were generally used to describe unusually large or destructive storms. [2] The term superstorm was employed in 1993 by the National Weather Service to describe a Nor'easter in March of that year. [3] The term is most frequently used to describe a weather pattern that is as destructive as a hurricane, but which exhibits the cold-weather patterns of a winter storm. [4]

Origin

The Oxford English Dictionary has published references going back to 1718 for "perfect storm", though the earliest citations use the phrase in the sense of "absolute" or "complete", or for emphasis, as in "a perfect stranger".

The phrase appears in William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair (1847-1848)

I have heard a brother of the story-telling trade at Naples preaching to a pack of good-for-nothing honest, lazy fellows by the sea-shore, work himself up into such a rage and passion with some of the villains whose wicked deeds he was describing and inventing, that the audience could not resist it; and they and the poet together would burst out into a roar of oaths and execrations against the fictitious monster of the tale, so that the hat went round, and the bajocchi tumbled into it, in the midst of a perfect storm of sympathy.

The first known use of the expression in the meteorological sense is on May 30, 1850, when the Rev. Lloyd of Withington describes ″A perfect storm of thunder and lightning all over England (except London) doing fearful and fatal damage″ when recording monthly rainfall measurements for that year. This record is kept by the UK Meteorological Office. [5] The next recorded instance is in the March 20, 1936, issue of the Port Arthur News in Texas: "The weather bureau describes the disturbance as 'the perfect storm' of its type. Seven factors were involved in the chain of circumstances that led to the flood." [6]

In 1993, journalist and author Sebastian Junger planned to write a book about a fishing boat caught in the 1991 Halloween Nor'easter storm. Technically, this storm was an extratropical cyclone. In the course of his research, he spoke with Bob Case, who had been a deputy meteorologist in the Boston office of the National Weather Service at the time of the storm. Case described to Junger the confluence of three different weather-related phenomena that combined to create what Case referred to as the "perfect situation" to generate such a storm:

From that, Junger keyed on Case's use of the word perfect and coined the phrase perfect storm, choosing to use The Perfect Storm as the title of his book.

Junger published his book The Perfect Storm in 1997 and its success brought the phrase into popular culture. Its adoption was accelerated with the release of the 2000 feature film adaptation of Junger's book. Since the release of the movie, the phrase has grown to mean any event where a situation is aggravated drastically by an exceptionally rare combination of circumstances. [1]

Although the 1991 Halloween Nor'easter was a powerful storm by any measure, there have been other storms that have exceeded its strength. According to Case, the type of convergence of weather events to which he was referring, while unusual, is not exceptionally rare or unique, despite the way the phrase is commonly used. [7] [8]

Other uses

From the beginning, the phrase was in heavy use during the financial crisis of 2007–2008, even to the point of pundits anticipating "another perfect storm". [9]

The phrase was awarded the top prize by Lake Superior State University in their 2007 list of words that deserve to be banned for overuse. [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

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A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere of an astronomical body. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, tornadoes, hail, thunder and lightning, heavy precipitation, heavy freezing rain, strong winds, wind transporting some substance through the atmosphere such as in a dust storm, among other forms of severe weather.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nor'easter</span> Type of cyclone occurring in the northern Atlantic coast of North America

A nor'easter is a large-scale extratropical cyclone in the western North Atlantic Ocean. The name derives from the direction of the winds that blow from the northeast. Typically, such storms originate as a low-pressure area that forms within 100 miles (160 km) of the shore between North Carolina and Massachusetts. The precipitation pattern is similar to that of other extratropical storms, although nor'easters are usually accompanied by heavy rain or snow, and can cause severe coastal flooding, coastal erosion, hurricane-force winds, or blizzard conditions. They tend to develop most often and most powerfully between the months of November and March, because of the difference in temperature between the cold polar air mass coming down from central Canada and the warm ocean waters off the upper East Coast. The susceptible regions—the upper north Atlantic coast of the United States and the Atlantic Provinces of Canada—are generally impacted by nor'easters a few times each winter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Project Stormfury</span> NOAA weather modification program.

Project Stormfury was an attempt to weaken tropical cyclones by flying aircraft into them and seeding them with silver iodide. The project was run by the United States Government from 1962 to 1983. The hypothesis was that the silver iodide would cause supercooled water in the storm to freeze, disrupting the inner structure of the hurricane, and this led to seeding several Atlantic hurricanes. However, it was later shown that this hypothesis was incorrect. It was determined that most hurricanes do not contain enough supercooled water for cloud seeding to be effective. Additionally, researchers found that unseeded hurricanes often undergo the same structural changes that were expected from seeded hurricanes. This finding called Stormfury's successes into question, as the changes reported now had a natural explanation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1993 Storm of the Century</span> Category 5 noreaster in the United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hurricane Catarina</span> Category 2 South Atlantic hurricane in 2004

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">1991 Perfect Storm</span> Noreaster and Category 1 Atlantic hurricane in 1991

The 1991 Perfect Storm, also known as The No-Name Storm and the Halloween Gale/Storm, was a damaging and deadly nor'easter in October 1991. Initially an extratropical cyclone, the storm absorbed Hurricane Grace to its south and evolved into a small unnamed hurricane later in its life. Damage from the storm totaled over $200 million and thirteen people were killed in total, six of which were an outcome of the sinking of Andrea Gail, which inspired the book and later movie, The Perfect Storm. The nor'easter received the name, playing off the common expression, after a conversation between Boston National Weather Service forecaster Robert Case and author Sebastian Junger.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Case</span> American meteorologist

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Andrew Stern (2008-01-01). "Wordsmiths, avoid these words". Reuters. Retrieved 2008-06-19.
  2. Chameides, Bill. "What makes a storm 'super'". Duke’s Nicholas School blog. Archived from the original on 28 April 2017. Retrieved 27 April 2017.
  3. National Weather Service, U.S. Department of Commerce. National Disaster Survey Report: Superstorm of March 1993 (PDF) (Report). Retrieved 27 April 2017.
  4. Conklin, Al (2013). "What's in a name? Sandy: Hurricane or Superstorm?". WSFA. Retrieved 27 April 2017.
  5. The Met Office, UK
  6. "The Grammarphobia Blog: The imperfect storm". Grammarphobia.com. 2008-05-08. Retrieved 2013-10-29.
  7. "Meteorologists say 'Perfect Storm' not so perfect". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2023-03-31.
  8. West, James. (2000, July 6). "[https://www.usatoday.com/weather/movies/ps/psname.htm The naming of ("The Perfect Storm"), USA Today
  9. "Prepare for another perfect storm Archived 2010-07-27 at the Wayback Machine "