Melissa

Weather history is currently unfolding in the central Caribbean. Hurricane Melissa is beginning to make landfall on the southwestern coast of Jamaica as a CAT 5 hurricane (winds  > 157 mph). It's central pressure is 892 mb - a drop of about 10-12 mb since yesterday morning - and has maximum surface winds of 160 kts (~ 180 mph). IR and visible satellite imagery from this morning (10/28/2025) reveals an extremely intense hurricane. The symmetry and clarity of the eye in the both the IR and visible are obvious, which is one indicative sign of a very strong storm.

GOES East True Color imagery 10/28/2025

GOES East IR imagery 10/28/2025

Up until the past 12-24 hrs, Melissa's movement had been nearly stagnant as it spun off the coast of Jamaica for more than two days. The slow moving nature of Melissa - in close proximity to Jamaica up until this point - has inundated the island with relentless rainfall, and with more rain on the way catastrophic flooding is very possible. Total precipitation amounts could top out around 30".

NHC Probabilities of the hurricane-force wind speeds

One silver lining of this hurricane is that is compact and the strongest of the hurricane force winds lie within a focused area around the eyewall. In other words, not all of Jamaica will be impacted by 180+ mph winds. Nevertheless, this is an extremely dangerous situation for the island nation. This could be the most powerful hurricane to ever make landfall in Jamaica.

ECMWF 00Z 10/28/2025 four-panel forecast for 10/28-11/1/2025: (Top left to bottom right) MSLP/precip and 1000-500 mb thickness;700 mb gph, RH, temp, and winds; 300 mb gph and winds; 500 mb gph, vorticity, and winds

Melissa will progress over Jamaica on Tuesday before briefly crossing open water and making landfall across far eastern Cuba sometime Wednesday. At that point, Melissa will likely be weakened due to interactions with land but still could be a strong hurricane. The storm track will accelerate rapidly to the NE after Wednesday as the hurricane begins to interact with a deep trough across the SE CONUS. Strong upper-level wind shear - associated with the upper-level trough and corresponding jet streak - and cooler ocean water temperatures will also aid in weakening the hurricane. There could be some interaction between the trough and hurricane remnants along the NE U.S. seaboard come late week into the weekend, but that is tbd...

ECMWF 00Z 10/28/25 Ensemble tracks for Hurricane Melissa