Jamaica braces for Cat 5 Hurricane Melissa, Earth’s strongest storm of 2025 » Yale Climate Connections

Winds and heavy rain increasing in Jamaica

On Sunday night, the winds began increasing in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, reaching tropical storm-force: 39 mph (63 km/h), gusting to 46 mph (74 km/h). Observations from the airport have been arriving intermittently so far Monday morning, but a live webcam looking out over the Kingston Harbor was showing a formidable white-capped surface, with the camera vibrating in the powerful wind gusts. Radar out of Kingston showed that an outer spiral band of Melissa began lashing the southeastern coast of Jamaica on Monday morning. Storm chasers Josh Morgerman (iCyclone) and Jeff Piotrowski are in Jamaica, and will be tweeting.

One positive note: Hurricane Melissa’s ascent to Category 5 strength occurred far enough offshore from Jamaica to spare an entire weekend of torrential rains. A personal weather station on the west side of Kingston at Portmore has recorded a two-day total of just 0.55 inches (14 mm) ending at noon EDT Monday.

Melissa the remarkable third Cat 5 for the Atlantic in 2025

Melissa is the third Cat 5 observed so far in the Atlantic, along with Hurricane Erin (Aug. 16) and Hurricane Humberto (Sep. 27). This makes 2025 only the second year more than two Cat 5s have been observed in the Atlantic. The record of four is held by 2005, when Emily, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma all achieved Cat 5 status.

The two-year period 2024-2025 is only the second time that the Atlantic has seen two consecutive years with multiple Cat 5s; 2024 also had two Cat 5s, Beryl and Milton. The only other two-year span with multiple Cat 5s was 1932-1933 (h/t to Jasper Deng for this stat).

Remarkably, four out of five of this year’s Atlantic hurricanes have been Category 4 or 5 storms — the highest percentage ever observed in any hurricane season. Hurricane Gabrielle was a Cat 4, and the year’s only underachieving hurricane was Hurricane Imelda, which topped out as a Cat 2.

Numerous studies over the past 20 years have found that hurricane-strength storms are not becoming more numerous globally, but the fraction of such storms that reach Category 4 or 5 strength is growing and expected to keep growing, so the world is seeing more of these intense tropical cyclones, which tend to be the most deadly and destructive ones.

Melissa is the planet’s fifth Category 5 storm of 2025, joining Typhoon Ragasa in the Northwest Pacific (Sep. 21), Hurricane Erin in the Atlantic (Aug. 16), Hurricane Humberto in the Atlantic (Sep. 27), and Cyclone Errol off the coast of northwest Australia (Apr. 16). The 1990-2024 average globally for an entire year is 5.3 Cat 5s; there were five in 2024.

The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season so far has had 13 named storms, five hurricanes, four major hurricanes, and an accumulated cyclone energy, or ACE, index 97% of average. The 1991-2020 averages by this point in the season are 13.2 named storms, 6.4 hurricanes, and 3.0 major hurricanes.

Track forecast for Melissa

The weak steering currents Melissa has been trapped in over the past few days are about to be disrupted by a trough of low pressure passing to the north, which will yank the hurricane to the northeast at an accelerating pace beginning on Monday night. Nearly all of the models show a direct hit for western Jamaica Tuesday morning, but the high terrain of the island may cause some unusual motion of Melissa when it nears landfall.

Regardless of the exact track, Melissa will bring two days of relentless torrential rains to Jamaica, eastern Cuba, and Haiti. The three-day rainfall forecast issued Monday by NHC for Jamaica, southwestern Haiti, and eastern Cuba is truly concerning, with catastrophic flooding likely. Consult our post from yesterday giving maps with detailed risks for inland flooding, storm surge flooding, and landslides for Jamaica. The video posted below by Volcaholic on Twitter is concerning, showing people who are refusing to evacuate from Port Royal, located on a low-lying spit of land west of the Kingston airport connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway. Storm surge risk maps show that Port Royal could flood to a depth of six feet or more from a major hurricane.

Intensity forecast for Melissa

Favorable conditions for intensification are expected for the remainder of Melissa’s trek toward Jamaica and Cuba, with the exception of land interaction with the high mountains of those two islands. There is also the possibility that Melissa could temporarily weaken because of an eyewall replacement cycle.

As documented by Michael Lowry, Melissa’s intensification last night coincided with a slight southwestward wobble over a warm-core eddy of ocean water – a clockwise ring of extremely warm water south of Jamaica, similar to the much larger Loop Current warm-core eddy that famously led to Katrina’s rapid intensification into a Cat 5 over the Gulf of Mexico in 2005. According to Lowry, the satellite estimates of Melissa’s intensity using the standard Dvorak satellite intensity estimation technique hit the highest value ever recorded for an Atlantic hurricane on Monday morning: an unadjusted T8.3 value. The previous record was T8.0, held by Category 5 Gilbert in 1988, which devastated Jamaica as a Category 3 hurricane with 125 mph winds.

Lowry wrote: “Typically, a current satellite intensity value of 8.0 would suggest a Category 5 hurricane with pressures below 900 mb and winds nearing 200 mph. In the case of Melissa, observations from hurricane hunters have been finding consistently weaker winds and higher pressures than satellite estimates would otherwise suggest.” This discrepancy may be because of the high altitudes where one finds the bottom of the stratosphere in the Caribbean in October, as noted by Eric Webb.

The maximum potential intensity (MPI) of a tropical cyclone — the maximum strength a storm can achieve based on the existing atmospheric and oceanic conditions — is about 195 mph (315 km/h) for Melissa, according to the 12Z Monday run of the SHIPS model. Melissa’s MPI is about 200-230 mph with a central pressure of 850-875 mb, according to a graphic available at the University of Wisconsin’s CIMSS. Given the moderate wind shear (10-15 knots) expected to affect Melissa on Monday, along with its very slow motion and potential interaction with the rugged terrain of Jamaica, the storm is unlikely to approach its maximum potential intensity, and the 11 a.m. EDT Monday forecast from NHC predicted that Melissa had reached its maximum lifetime intensity.

Jamaican agriculture at risk of a devastating blow

While a landfall near the capital of Kingston has been viewed by some as a worst-case scenario for Melissa, a landfall farther to the west over the island’s St. Elizabeth Parish would also be very bad, since that is the most agriculturally productive region of Jamaica. Hurricane Beryl of 2024 passed about 20 miles (32 km) south of Jamaica’s St. Elizabeth Parish as a Cat 4 with 140 mph (225 km/h) winds, causing extensive damage to agriculture in the province, dumping rains of 8-12 inches (200-300 mm). The strongest reported sustained winds in the parish were 65 mph (105 km/h) gusting to 123 mph (198 km/h) at the Newcombe Valley Primary School (elevation 103 m). Beryl killed four people in Jamaica and caused total damages of $1 billion. Blog commenter Kingston Hurricane posted this in the Eye on the Storm comments last night:

St. Elizabeth is our ‘breadbasket’ — the majority of our crops are grown there. So, a Cat 5 making landfall there is in my opinion worse than making landfall in Kingston. Mind you we went through this last year with Hurricane Beryl, where St. Elizabeth got it the worst. For reference, a single bell pepper was $2 USD before Beryl and $8 USD after Beryl (I’m talking about locally grown produce). That price never really recovered.

Longer-range outlook for Melissa: Cuba the Bahamas, and Bermuda at risk

Depending upon how much of a favor Jamaica does for Cuba by disrupting Melissa, Cuba can expect to see Melissa make landfall at between Cat 2 and Cat 3 strength. Inland flooding and mudslides from Melissa’s torrential rains are likely to be the main hazard in Cuba, but damage from high winds and storm surge is also likely to be substantial, depending upon the exact track of the hurricane in relation to the island’s population centers. Cuba’s fragile electrical grid suffered a complete island-wide collapse when Cat 3 Hurricane Rafael hit in November last year, and has suffered four more collapses since then, each one requiring about 2-3 days to recover from. Melissa will be a threat to take down the grid for a sixth time in the past year.

After crossing eastern Cuba, Melissa is likely to pass quickly through the southeastern Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands. This fast motion will limit the rains of the hurricane, but rainfall amounts of 5-10 inches (125-250 mm) are likely. Melissa’s current forecast track takes it over or very near Crooked Island, which is highly vulnerable to storm surge. Melissa will likely be a Cat 1 or Cat 2 hurricane in the Bahamas, and on Friday, when it will be very near Bermuda. Melissa is likely to pass a few hundred miles southeast of Newfoundland, Canada on Saturday, and a flow of moist air around the storm is likely to contribute to heavy rains of 1-3 inches (25-75 mm) over Atlantic Canada on Friday and Saturday, associated with a separate coastal storm.

Bob Henson contributed to this post.