Hurricane Melissa plowed toward Jamaica as a powerful Category 5 storm, threatening to bring widespread destruction to the island.
Melissa’s top winds reached 160 miles (257 kilometers) per hour, the US National Hurricane Center said in an
advisory at 8 a.m. local time. Destructive winds, storm surge and catastrophic flooding are expected to get worse
n Monday before Melissa makes landfall overnight. If it maintains its strength, Melissa will be the first confirmed Category 5 storm — the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale – to hit Jamaica.
Melissa, currently about 135 miles southwest of Kingston, is forecast to dump as much as 30 inches of rain across parts of Jamaica, and the hurricane center
has warned that the torrent could trigger landslides. More than 800 shelters have been opened across the isl
and and local authorities have staged heavy equipment to clear debris from roadways.
Jamaica’s losses will range between $5 billion to $16 billion, depending on the exact track across the island, says Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Resear
ch. There will likely be another $5 billion of losses in Cuba. From there, the storm is forecast to sweep through the
southern Bahamas and possible approach Bermuda by Thursday. Melissa has killed at least three people in Haiti and one person in the Dominican Republic.
“All scenarios except some kind of divine intervention look utterly devastating at this point,” Watson said.
While the data is spotty in places, there is no record of a storm this strong ever hitting Jamaica since 1851, said Phil
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Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University. Before Melissa, the most powerful storm to hit the island was Gilbert in 1988, as a Category 4 with winds of about 132 mph.
In the Atlantic this year, Hurricanes Erin and Humberto also reached Category 5, though neither threatens land. Gabrielle hit Category 4, which means f
ur storms have become major hurricanes across the Atlantic in 2025, co
mpared with an average of three by the end of October. The six-month season officially ends on November 30, but storms can take shape in every month of the year.
Klotzbach said in an X post that the only other year more than two Category 5 hurricanes formed in the Atlantic wa
s 2005, which produced four — including Katrina, which devastated New Orleans.
A hurricane warning has been issued for four provinces in Cuba, where Melissa is forecast to hit after devastating Jamaica. Companies have evacuated work
rs and the US Navy pulled non-essential personnel out of its base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Melissa’s slow crawl across the region makes flooding worse because its heaviest rains will linger for days. In a wa
world due to climate change, the atmosphere holds more water, worsening heavy rains from tropical systems.