I'm pretty sure that one started out as a Britishism. I first heard it used in Staines England in the mid 80s. My first reaction was puzzlement, figured out what they meant by context (software company, development dates slipping due to something out of our control). At the time, using it in the US felt as pretentious as using 'at the end of the day' to mean 'the overall result'.
I've been hearing it more of late. We English speakers are magpies. If a word or phrase is useful, we take it for our own.