Some history. Courtesy by Dr Bob Henson at WU.
South Atlantic tropical storm history
Tropical and subtropical storms are so rare in the South Atlantic that until 2011, there was no official naming of depressions or storms done. In 2011, the Brazilian Navy Hydrographic Center instituted a naming system with nine names, of which two have been used so far (Arani in 2011, and Bapo in 2015.) If this week’s storm becomes a subtropical storm, it will be called Carl. Brazil has had only one landfalling tropical cyclone in its history, Cyclone Catarina of March 2004. Catarina is one of fewer than ten tropical or subtropical storms to form in the South Atlantic, and the only one to reach hurricane strength. An unnamed February 2006 storm may have attained wind speeds of 65 mph, and a subtropical storm brought heavy flooding to the coast of Uruguay in January 2009, killing fourteen people. Tropical cyclones rarely form in the South Atlantic Ocean, due to strong upper-level wind shear, cool water temperatures, and the lack of an initial disturbance to get things spinning (no African waves or Intertropical Convergence Zone exist in the proper locations in the South Atlantic to help spawn tropical storms).
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/Basin_SAtlantic.html
