Conor right here: Simply so as to add a couple of extra observations to those beneath:
A wind gust of 252 mph was simply measured above the floor in Hurricane Melissa because the storm continues to accentuate proper up till landfall.
That is the worst-case situation for Jamaica. pic.twitter.com/uIyyW9BD5u
— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) October 28, 2025
This dropsonde through the south and southeast a part of #Melissa’s eyewall is essentially the most insane dropsonde I’ve ever seen.
*Imply* winds within the lowest 150m of 188 knot/216 mph with gusts upwards of 219 knot/252 mph!!
Completely scary and historic hurricane is headed into SW Jamaica pic.twitter.com/agYOOtAy9V
— Eric Webb (@webberweather) October 28, 2025
Yeah I’m not gonna lie, Hurricane #Melissa feels just like the closest factor I’ve seen to the Atlantic’s model of Hurricane Haiyan #Melissa (left), #Haiyan (2013) (proper) pic.twitter.com/rAcZRr1GBK
— Eric Webb (@webberweather) October 28, 2025
By Jake Johnson, a a senior editor and employees author at Widespread Desires. Initially printed at Widespread Desires.
Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a monstrous Class 5 storm because the island nation braced for devastating impacts, humanitarian operations urgently mobilized, and consultants voiced horror on the newest climate-fueled climate catastrophe.
“That is an especially harmful and life-threatening state of affairs,” the Nationwide Hurricane Heart mentioned in an replace after the storm made landfall.
Early video footage posted to social media exhibits the storm—the strongest to ever strike the island and the third-strongest to ever type within the Atlantic—wreaking havoc and destruction.
🇯🇲 | Video que muestra los daños y las inundaciones en el área de Black River, Jamaica, por el huracán Melissa. pic.twitter.com/k6RZDE9jdB
— Entredostv (@Entredostv1) October 28, 2025
Anne-Claire Fontan, the World Meteorological Group’s tropical cyclone specialist, informed reporters that “a catastrophic state of affairs is predicted in Jamaica” and described the hurricane as “the storm of the century” for the island. Melissa’s landfall is predicted to carry excessive flooding, landslides, and different life-threatening impacts.
Tens of 1000’s of Jamaicans misplaced energy because the slow-moving storm approached the island, bringing torrential rain and most sustained winds of 185 mph, with gusts over 220 mph. Storms like Melissa are the explanation scientists are pushing to formally add a Class 6 for hurricanes.
“Unimaginable violence is hiding within the very small and compact eyewall of Melissa,” mentioned Greg Postel, hurricane specialist at The Climate Channel. “Practically steady lightning will accompany the tornadic wind speeds.”
Melissa tonight has had one of the highly effective satellite tv for pc shows you’ll ever see for an Atlantic Hurricane. Excellent symmetry in all quadrants and satellite tv for pc estimation methods being maxed out, with Dvorak evaluation yielding 871.1 mbar (recon discovered the actual strain to… pic.twitter.com/nKKFbv4g7j
— Backpirch Climate (@BackpirchCrew) October 28, 2025
The Worldwide Federation of the Pink Cross mentioned as much as 1.5 million individuals in Jamaica—roughly half the island’s inhabitants—are anticipated to be immediately affected by Hurricane Melissa, the strongest storm on Earth this 12 months.
“We’re okay in the mean time however bracing ourselves for the worst,” Jamaican local weather activist Tracey Edwards mentioned Tuesday. “I’ve grown weary of those threats, and I don’t wish to face the following hurricane.”
The Worldwide Group for Migration warned that “the chance of flooding, landslides, and widespread harm is extraordinarily excessive,” that means that “many individuals are more likely to be displaced from their houses and in pressing want of shelter and reduction.”
Melissa’s landfall got here on the identical day that United Nations Secretary-Normal António Guterres mentioned the worldwide group has failed to forestall planetary warming from surpassing the important thing 1.5°C threshold “within the subsequent few years.”
Meteorologist Eric Holthaus wrote on social media that “that is the information I’ve dreaded all my life.”
“Humanity has didn’t keep away from harmful local weather change,” he wrote. “We have now now entered the overshoot period. Our new objective is to forestall as many irreversible tipping factors from taking maintain as we will.”
Local weather consultants mentioned Hurricane Melissa bears unmistakable fingerprints of the planetary disaster, which is pushed primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.
The warming local weather is “clearly making this horrific catastrophe for Jamaica, Cuba, and the Bahamas even worse,” Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist on the Woodwell Local weather Analysis Heart, informed the New York Instances.
Akshay Deoras, a meteorologist on the College of Studying within the United Kingdom, informed the Related Press that the Atlantic “is extraordinarily heat proper now.”
“And it’s not simply the floor,” mentioned Deoras. “The deeper layers of the ocean are additionally unusually heat, offering an enormous reservoir of vitality for the storm.”
Amira Odeh, Caribbean campaigner at 350.org, warned in an announcement Tuesday that “what is occurring in Jamaica is what local weather injustice appears like.”
“Each dwelling with out electrical energy, each flooded hospital, each household lower off by the storm is a consequence of political inaction,” mentioned Odeh. “We can not proceed shedding Caribbean lives due to the fossil gas trade’s greed.”
“As world leaders head to COP30, they have to perceive that each delay, each new fossil gas undertaking, means extra lives misplaced,” Odeh added. “Jamaica is the newest warning, and Belém have to be the place we lastly see a steer to vary programs. The Caribbean is sounding the alarm as soon as once more. This time, the world should hear.”
