1A particularly violent storm arising from a rare combination of adverse meteorological factors.

1. 1.1 A particularly bad or critical state of affairs, arising from a number of negative and unpredictable factors.
   the past two years have been a perfect storm for the travel industry

   Example sentencesExamples

   • This convergence with the Internet is creating the perfect storm.
   • Combine that trend with the speed and ubiquity of travel over long distances and with the vast global inequities in the distribution of primary and preventive health care, and you have the makings of an epidemiological perfect storm.
   • That made a perfect storm, if you will, for clubs elsewhere to make their cases, and that they did.
   • And a wedding is a perfect storm of all those interests.
   • The perfect storm of a number of events in the past year has raised considerably our level of awareness of potential threats - which is unbelievably healthy.
   • But our perfect storm of bad publicity, political grandstanding and corporate trouble doesn't have to swallow us.
   • If it weren't for scant inflation and low interest rates, corporate America would have steered right into the middle of a perfect storm.
   • We face a perfect storm of environmental degradation and the ongoing collapse of a rickety, misbegotten infrastructure that in most cases is provoking the very conditions that will topple it.
   • It's only a small detail in this story, but it has all the ingredients for a perfect storm.
   • This year's theme will be the perfect storm in economic and financial markets.
   • He's kind of like the perfect storm with his combination of looks and pedigree.
   • It looks to me like a more perfect storm has struck the school lunchroom and vending channels.
   • The past five years have been a perfect storm of low interest rates, easy credit, and rising household costs.
   • This just seems like a perfect storm for the airlines.
   • Indeed, football fans around the country will be joining the inactive list as their bodies fail to digest a perfect storm of spicy, saucy, salty, and fatty foods.
   • We are leveraging our assets and our core competencies to take advantage of what I would characterize as the perfect storm of what took place over the last three or four years in the retail record industry.
   • When these and other factors coincided they created the perfect storm.
   • It is brewed in a perfect storm of new markets, new technologies, and a new enterprise logic.
   • At the same time, millions of employees face added insecurities as defined benefits are being put in jeopardy due to the perfect storm of pension funding: Falling interest rates, tumbling asset prices, and a weak economy.
   • The truth is we were part of the perfect storm in the late 1990s, as was the media, as was the financial community and the investment banks.