I apologize about my post...I'm a little touchy about the subject of the "perfect storm" because it really isn't all that different from what we've seen in many other cases, just with added notoriety, bringing it (unnecessarily, IMO) well into the forefront of the public's minds.

For instance, the first part about the extratropical storm capturing Grace: that's a classic extratropical transition followed by merger. The uniqueness comes in that there appeared to be a blocking pattern over the Atlantic, preventing the storm from continuing east. A warm-seclusion occured -- as evidenced with a warm core at low levels (but not upper levels) -- and the system, over the Gulf Stream, began to transition again into a hybrid-type of storm, with very strong winds (and an eye-like feature) well-removed from the center of the storm. We see the warm seclusion evolution after ET about 1/4 of the time of all ETs, making it not all that uncommon either.

Just my feelings on the matter...