A study from Stanford University suggests that “perfect storm” disasters can be anticipated using an engineering risk analysis approach.
A “perfect storm” involves multiple forces joining to create a disaster greater than the sum of its parts and due to their rare nature are often described as unpredictable.
Professor Elisabeth Paté-Cornell believes that risk of such a storm can be assessed systematically as the events involved have been observed in the past.
“Risk analysis is not about predicting anything before it happens, it’s just giving the probability of various scenarios,” she explains.
Read more at Stanford University