طوفان

In contemporary Iranian news, طوفان appears in two registers. The literal one: storms hitting the Caspian coast, sandstorms in Khuzestan, dust storms blowing across Tehran from dried-up Lake Urmia. The political one: any large protest movement, financial shock, or diplomatic crisis can be called a طوفان. The word carries a sense of inevitability, of something that has to be ridden out rather than stopped.