KAREN MAGINNIS, METEOROLOGIST: It was during the overnight hours of February 22nd going into the morning of February 23rd and the radar just light up like a Christmas tree. When you see a lot of that red flashing on the radar, that tells us that we've got some super cells. Those are the most intense thunderstorms that we see, and they have a tendency to spawn tornadic activity.</s>JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: Incredible devastation both on the west and east coasts. High surf, powerful winds all blamed on El Nino. In the Orlando, Florida, area, the storms hit without warning. Dozen have died, hundreds are homeless.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All of a sudden he said to hit the floor, so I went in the bathroom, which is in the center of the trailer, and I curled up in a ball and laid on the floor, he was laying on the living room floor. And the wind just -- it was rocking the trailer back and forth and then it picked us up, put the trailer on its side, then all of a sudden it just picked us back again and set us right back down the way we were originally.</s>MAGINNIS: That particular night, very warm, saturated atmosphere. In February, you can expect to see tornadoes, but you don't expect to see an F4 tornado like we did in Florida that killed 42 people, injured hundreds of people, affected many counties in central Florida.
CNN 20: Tornadoes Hit Central Florida, February 23, 1998