Intense Tropical Cyclone Bonita in January 1996 struck both Madagascar and Mozambique, causing severe damage. The long-lived storm began developing in the last hours of 1995, and slowly consolidated over the open waters of the South-West Indian Ocean. Tracking generally toward the west-southwest, the disturbance received its name from Météo-France on 5 January. Ultimately peaking as an intense tropical cyclone, Bonita bypassed Mauritius and Réunion to the north before striking northeastern Madagascar late on 10 January. There, the storm affected up to 150,000 people, flooded wide tracts of croplands, and killed 25 people. In the aftermath, disaster relief came from both the government of Madagascar and the international community, as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs); the United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs assisted in the distribution of about $450,000 in monetary donations.

South Atlantic tropical cyclones are unusual weather events that occur in the Southern Hemisphere. Strong wind shear, which disrupts the formation of cyclones, as well as a lack of weather disturbances favorable for development in the South Atlantic Ocean, make any strong tropical system extremely rare, and Hurricane Catarina in 2004 is the only recorded South Atlantic hurricane in history. Storms can develop year-round in the South Atlantic, with activity peaking during the months from November through May. Since 2011, the Brazilian Navy Hydrographic Center has assigned names to tropical and subtropical systems in the western side of the basin, near the eastern coast of Brazil, when they have sustained wind speeds of at least 65 km/h (40 mph), the generally accepted minimum sustained wind speed for a disturbance to be designated as a tropical storm in the North Atlantic basin. Below is a list of notable South Atlantic tropical and subtropical cyclones.