My favorite of the 2004 Bulwer-Lytton winners:

It was a dark and stormy night - actually not all that dark, but more dusky or maybe cloudy, and to say 'stormy' may be overstating things a bit, although the sidewalks were still wettish and smelled of ozone, and, truth be told, characterizing the time as night is a stretch as it was more in the late, late afternoon because I think Oprah was still on.