Hurricane Melissa has been spinning its way through the ocean, gathering strength as it barreled towards Jamaica. It’s going to be a doozy — such a doozy that it is being called “among the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic.” At around 1 p.m. local time, Melissa made landfall near New Hope with estimated maximum sustained winds of 185 mph.
The storm is producing winds of up to 185 mph with a pressure of 892 mb. Only one hurricane in recorded history has had a higher wind speed. That was Hurricane Dorian in 2019, which produced winds of 190 mph. It will bring “catastrophic winds, rain, flooding and storm surge to Jamaica,” and many residents and tourists are sheltering in place, waiting for the worst to arrive. It’s strong enough that an NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft, tasked with recording the storm from the inside, had to abort the mission due to the severity of the turbulence the pilots experienced.
As of this writing, three people have died due to “storm-related deaths” in Jamaica. It’s a slow-moving hurricane, tracking across the ocean at around 2 mph. The eyewall, which is the innermost part of the hurricane next to the eye, is where the strongest wind speeds exist, and an update from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned that total structure failure is likely.
“Do not venture outside with catastrophic life-threatening flash flooding and numerous landslides expected through Tuesday,” warned NHC director Michael Brennan. With some 40 inches of rain forecast to fall on the island over the next few days, anyone in the vicinity is bracing for catastrophe.
There are nearly 900 shelters in Jamaica, and all of them have been activated for people fleeing the storm. Parts of Kingston have been evacuated. To make matters worse, October has been a wet month in Jamaica, with enough rain to saturate the soil. With another 40 inches expected, the damage will be enormous.
“We’ve been having rain all of October,” Jamaican Education Minister Dana Morris Dixon told the BBC. “So the ground is already very saturated. And then to take that much rain means we’re going to have flooding, extensive flooding and landslides in the mountainous areas.”