Sebastian Junger made  “perfect storm” famous in his book with that title.   He derived it from a conversation with a meteorologist.  Essentially it doesn’t mean a  purebred colossal storm. It means a conjunction of meteorological events that add up to something uncommonly bad.  By extension, it can be a conjunction of  meteorological and other events (or it can depart from the meteorological and take off into the metaphorical.)

Well, here’s one that we can hope and pray we don’t see.  The notorious oil spill is still bleeding like a cut artery in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.  What happens if a hurricane comes along?  NPR did a segment on this, and the prospects are awful.  By darkening the water, and causing the water to heat under the sun, the oil might make a hurricane more severe.  Or a hurricane might drive the oil much deeper into the salt marshes than it would have gone on its own.  Or shove the oil at Florida.

It’s beside the point to say this is an impossibly unlikely scenario.  By the reckoning of BP, the oil industry in general, and the Federal MMS agency that was way too cozy with the industry, the spill itself was impossible!