Brazilian Hurricane Catarina is First Clockwise Rotating Hurricane of Satellite Era

Brazil (HDW) March 27, 2004 - Since the beginning of the satellite era in the mid-1960's, no hurricane has ever been observed in the South Atlantic according to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center. But on Sunday morning, March 28th, 2004, a storm struck the Brazilian coast that may have changed all of that as forecasters believe it to be the first hurricane ever recorded in that region of the world. The un-named storm made landfall near the town of Torres just south of the resort town of Laguna in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, about 500 miles south of Rio de Janeiro. There were reports of winds as high as 100 kph (62 mph) in the area. So far reports indicate that 2 persons were killed by the storm with 500 homes destroyed and 20,000 homes damaged leaving 1500 people homeless. The search also goes on for 11 fisherman missing at sea after their 2 boats sank in 13-foot seas off the coast.
There is some debate, however, as to whether this storm was actually a true hurricane. Typically, strong wind shear in this part of the South Atlantic makes conditions unfavorable for tropical storm development. However, as has often been seen in the North Atlantic, extratropical systems that move over warm waters can become transformed into tropical systems and take on tropical characteristics. This storm appears to have originated as an extratropical low that moved off the Brazilian coast on the 20th that then became "cutoff", meaning it became separated from the the main air flow, on the 22nd of March. Sea surface temperatures were in the mid-70s (in degrees Fahrenheit), about the minimum needed for tropical storm formation. Meteorologists refer to tropical low pressure centers as warm cores because the air in the center of the circulation is warmer then the surrounding environmental air. Extratropical cyclones are typically cold core. The Brazilian weather service believes that the storm was extratropical in nature. As such a storm had thus far never been recorded in that area, there were no aircraft available to study the storm, leaving satellites to do the job of estimating its strength and structure.