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30-10-2025
KINGSTON: Jamaica is bracing for Hurricane Melissa, predicted to be the most destructive storm on record to hit the Caribbean island.
Forecasters say the Category 5 storm is likely to cause “catastrophic” flooding, landslides and widespread damage, and the Red Cross warns that up to 1.5 million people may be directly affected.
Melissa is expected to make landfall early on Tuesday morning, entering near St Elizabeth parish in the south and exiting around St Ann parish in the north.
The storm has already been blamed for seven deaths in the Caribbean, including three in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing.
More than 50,000 without power
Power outages have affected more than 52,000 customers in 24 hours, according to energy utility Jamaica Public Service (JPS).
From Monday through early Tuesday, JPS raced to restore service to some 30,000 people, it wrote in a WhatsApp update.
“We are working to connect the remaining customers,” JPS added, but “in some areas, heavy rains and difficult terrain are creating access challenges” as tropical conditions brought downpours and felled power lines.
Hurricane Melissa is expected to spawn power and communication outages, as well as isolated communities, the NHC has warned.
Hurricane Melissa’s heavy rainfall combined with powerful winds could cause destruction on par with other major hurricanes, including 2017’s Maria or 2005’s Katrina, which devastated Puerto Rico and the United States city of New Orleans, respectively.
Massive storms increasingly common
Scientists said human-driven climate change is causing such massive storms to become increasingly common in the region.
“Human-caused climate change is making all of the worst aspects of Hurricane Melissa even worse,” climate scientist Daniel Gilford said.
Meteorologist Kerry Emanuel said global warming was causing more storms to rapidly intensify as Melissa did, raising the potential for enormous rains.
“Water kills a lot more people than wind,” he told media.
When was Jamaica’s last hurricane?
Jamaica has never faced a Category 5 storm since recording began, and its last hurricane hit more than a decade ago.
When was Jamaica’s last hurricane?
In 2012, Hurricane Sandy, a Category 1 storm, made landfall on the island. Sandy was preceded by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, a Category 4 storm that killed at least 45 people.
Last year, Hurricane Beryl killed four people and damaged buildings as it neared the island’s southern coast, but did not strike Jamaica directly.
Hurricane Melissa is the third Category 5 Atlantic hurricane to develop in the 2025 season, following Humberto in September and Erin in August.
The only other hurricane season in recent memory with at least three Category 5 storms occurred in 2005, according to the Weather Channel. That year, four hurricanes, Emily, Katrina, Rita and Wilma, each hit the highest score on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
Latest on Melissa’s location
The Category 5 storm is currently fewer than 64km (40 miles) from landfall in Jamaica, according to a Zoom Earth satellite map. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
