THE’Hurricane Melissa is about to make landfall in Jamaica as a Category 5 hurricane, with winds expected up to 280 km/h and torrential rains with accumulations estimated between 380 and 762 mm. According to what was reported by National Hurricane Center, Melissa is currently moving in a north-east direction, at a speed of 7 km/h: according to forecasts, the eye of the storm should hit the island in the early afternoon, even if the outermost bands of the hurricane are already causing damage. Melissa, therefore, is classified as the most violent hurricane to hit Jamaica in instrumental timesi.e. since the records have existed.
Meanwhile, mass evacuations have already begun and at least 7 people have died, including 3 in Jamaica, 3 in Haiti and 1 in the Dominican Republic: the budget of victims, however, risks being much higherconsidering that the Caribbean country has never been hit by a hurricane exceeding category 4 and that the last time a cyclone directly touched the island was 13 years ago, with theHurricane Sandy. Over the last 24 hours the hurricane did not weaken, but, on the contrary, maintained a strength equal to category 5 (the maximum), which made it the strongest hurricane recorded so far in all of 2025.
According to the latest updates, wind gusts of up to 93 km/h were detected at Kingston International Airport: while in Jamaica more than 800 shelters have been opened and the Prime Minister Andrew Holness warned of particularly significant damage, other Caribbean states such as Cuba (where 120,000 people were evacuated), Bahamas And Haiti they are preparing for the impact, expected between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning.
How Hurricane Melissa formed: the trajectory
Melissa originated last October 21 as a tropical storm off the coast of Aruba: within a few days, it rapidly evolved into a Category 1 hurricane on Saffir-Simpson scaleonce it reached the Caribbean Sea, and then became a Category 5 hurricane, the most violent.
Among other things Melissa, who is now moving to one speed of 8 km/his following an unusual route towards Jamaica: generally, the most intense hurricanes hit the Caribbean country approaching from the east, while in this case the cyclone is about to make landfall from the south. Given the trajectory, strong winds (estimated up to 28o km/h) they will push the water directly onto the southern coast of the island, where several essential infrastructures, such as the Port of Kingston or Norman Manley International Airport, are located just above sea level. At the same time, the rather slow speed of movement causes the hurricane stations for longer over the same areacausing more damage.
In the last 24 hours, then, the hurricane did not weakenunlike what previously happened with the two hurricanes that reached category 5 this year, namely Humberto and Erin: both, in fact, maintained maximum intensity for around 12 hours, then ended up weakening in the following hours.
According to the National Hurricane CenterMelissa could even increase in intensity: the minimum central pressure of the storm has in fact fallen from 909 millibars (recorded on Monday evening) to 901 millibars this morning: in general, the lower the pressure, the stronger the cyclone will be. For comparison, the lowest pressure recorded during Hurricane Katrina, which devastated Louisiana in 2005, was 902 millibars. As a result, Melissa automatically enters the ranking of the 10 strongest hurricanes in history, ranking eighth.
According to forecasts, the passage of Hurricane Melissa is expected between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning on the island of Cubawhere 120,000 people have already been evacuated, and on Bahamaswhere a hurricane warning has already been activated. In the next few days, Melissa will continue along its trajectory, weakening, according to forecasts, to a category 2 hurricane once it reaches the islands Turks and Caicos and then downgraded to a tropical storm.
Melissa is the strongest cyclone recorded on Earth in 2025
At the moment, therefore, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has issued a hurricane warning due to the risk of “catastrophic winds, flash floods and storm surges“across the entire island of Jamaica. As mentioned, winds could reach 280 km/h, with rainfall accumulations of up to over 760 mm in a matter of a few hours.
In addition to the wind, however, the biggest threat is represented by the risk of storm surges: according to the National Hurricane Center they are in fact expected storm waves between 2.7 and 4 meters along the southern coast of the island, which could cause flooding and landslides in the hilly hinterland, isolating entire communities. Authorities have urged people to head to shelter as, although Jamaica’s infrastructure in urban areas has improved over the years, rural settlements remain inadequate to weather the storm.
Given its power, Hurricane Melissa is the most violent Atlantic cyclone of 2025but also the strongest ever recorded in the instrumental era in the history of Jamaica. Despite being in the midst of hurricane season, which begins on June 1st and ends on November 30th, Melissa strengthened very rapidly also due to the high water temperatures in the Caribbean Seaan element that acts as a real fuel for tropical storms that subsequently evolve into hurricanes, which absorb thermal energy from the water, becoming wetter and stronger.
