Cyclone Catarina
Cyclone Catarina was an extraordinarily rare tropical cyclone, formed in the southern Atlantic Ocean in March 2004. Just after becoming a hurricane, it hit the southern coast of Brazil near Laguna on the evening of March 28, with winds estimated near 135 km/h (85 mi/h), making it a category 1 storm. Catarina was compact, about 320 km (200 mi.) in diameter.
Brazilian meteorologists named the storm Catarina for its proximity to (and eventual landfall at) the state of Santa Catarina, although they have denied the storm, which clearly had an open eye, was a hurricane at all.
This event is considered by meteorologists to be a once-in-a-lifetime
occurrence (though some believe climate change may make them more common). Catarina is one of only three to have been recorded by weather satellites, and the only one ever recorded to have hit land.
Other South Atlantic Tropical Cyclones
In Mid-April of 1991 what may have been a tropical storm force cyclone was recorded by weather satellites off the coast of Angola. Additionally, on January 19th, 2004, another cyclonic circulation developed just east of Salvador Brazil. This storm was also believed to have been at tropical storm force and would mark the first time in recorded history that two tropical cyclones (Catarina and the January storm) have been seen during the same year in the South Atlantic.
