Took a look through all of that Phil...the ITCZ argument could work for the northern one in January, but not the big storm -- Catarina -- in March, which definitely had extratropical origins. I based my post above on a lot of the studies that have already been done on Catarina, many of which were presented at the Hurricanes & Tropical Met. conference in May that I was able to attend. Cool stuff.

On a side note, I may be giving a presentation in San Diego at the 2005 AMS Conference in January...I'll keep interested parties noted as I find out more.