Melissa Retains Major Hurricane Status After Roaring Across Jamaica
Christy Bowen
6 hours agoHurricane Melissa came ashore in Jamaica on Tuesday as a massive Category 5 storm, lashing out at the island with torrential rain, high winds, and destructive storm surge. Here is the latest on this historic storm.
Melissa Makes Landfall as Category 5 Monster
The most powerful storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season made its first landfall near New Hope, Jamaica, at about 1 pm EDT on Tuesday. Melissa was a Category 5 storm when it roared ashore with maximum sustained winds of 185 mph. The event marked the first time since 2019's Hurricane Dorian that a Category 5 storm came on land.
While most storms tend to weaken as they approach land, Melissa did just the opposite. The storm continued to strengthen overnight Monday and into Tuesday morning, making its landfall at its peak intensity.
At least seven fatalities across the Caribbean have already been blamed on Melissa. Local officials warn that the death toll is likely to increase as search and rescue crews comb through the devastation left behind in Jamaica. Early video footage and photos paint a dire picture.
It will take several days for the full scope of the tragedy to be revealed. The preliminary estimates predict that the total economic loss for Jamaica will come in at over $20 billion.
Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness told the media that there is no infrastructure in the path of Melissa that is built to withstand a Category 5 event. Holness said that the biggest question will be how quickly the nation can recover.
Despite being centrally located in the middle of the hurricane-prone Caribbean, it has been almost 40 years since Jamaica sustained a direct strike from a storm of Category 3 strength or higher. You have to go back to 1988 to when Hurricane Gilbert came ashore as a Category 3 event. Gilbert raced across the island, helping to mitigate the overall damage. This compares to Melissa, a storm that has been moving at an exceptionally slow speed since its birth.
The weather began to deteriorate quickly across Jamaica on Monday. Local officials issued mandatory evacuations for large sections of the island, focusing on the coastal areas where storm surge was expected to be the most catastrophic.
Melissa became the third storm of the 2025 Atlantic season to reach the top-tier Category 5 status, joining Erin and Humberto on the list. Melissa quickly evolved into the strongest storm of the trio after reaching a Category 5 status on Monday. The storm was also distinguished by its low central pressure reading. This measurement indicates the atmospheric pressure within the middle of the eye. Melissa's pressure plummeted to 892 millibars just prior to its landfall, good enough for making it the third-most intense storm ever observed in the Caribbean.
In addition, Melissa is now the second-strongest hurricane as measured by pressure at any place in the Atlantic during the month of October. Only Hurricane Wilma registered a lower central pressure reading.