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, making it a category 1 storm. Catarina was compact, about 320 km 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). Only one possible tropical cyclone has ever been reported in the South Atlantic before, and it stayed out at sea. Catarina is the only one to have been recorded by weather satellites, and the only one ever recorded to have hit land.