‘The Stuff of Nightmares’: Hurricane Melissa Makes Catastrophic Landfall in Jamaica

Conor here: Just to add a few more observations to the ones below:

A wind gust of 252 mph was just measured above the surface in Hurricane Melissa as the storm continues to intensify right up until landfall.

This is the worst-case scenario for Jamaica. pic.twitter.com/uIyyW9BD5u

— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) October 28, 2025

This dropsonde thru the south and southeast part of #Melissa’s eyewall is the most insane dropsonde I’ve ever seen.

*Mean* winds in the lowest 150m of 188 knot/216 mph with gusts upwards of 219 knot/252 mph!!

Absolutely 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 like the closest thing I’ve seen to the Atlantic’s version of Hurricane Haiyan #Melissa (left), #Haiyan (2013) (right) pic.twitter.com/rAcZRr1GBK

— Eric Webb (@webberweather) October 28, 2025

By Jake Johnson, a a senior editor and staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams. 

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a monstrous Category 5 storm as the island country braced for devastating impacts, humanitarian operations urgently mobilized, and experts voiced horror at the latest climate-fueled weather disaster.

“This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation,” the National Hurricane Center said in an update after the storm made landfall.

Early video footage posted to social media shows the storm—the most powerful to ever strike the island and the third-strongest to ever form in 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 Organization’s tropical cyclone specialist, told reporters that “a catastrophic situation is expected in Jamaica” and described the hurricane as “the storm of the century” for the island. Melissa’s landfall is expected to bring extreme flooding, landslides, and other life-threatening impacts.

Tens of thousands of Jamaicans lost power as the slow-moving storm approached the island, bringing torrential rain and maximum sustained winds of 185 mph, with gusts over 220 mph. Storms like Melissa are the reason scientists are pushing to formally add a Category 6 for hurricanes.

“Unimaginable violence is hiding in the very small and compact eyewall of Melissa,” said Greg Postel, hurricane specialist at The Weather Channel. “Nearly continuous lightning will accompany the tornadic wind speeds.”

Melissa tonight has had one of the most powerful satellite presentations you will ever see for an Atlantic Hurricane. Perfect symmetry in all quadrants and satellite estimation techniques being maxed out, with Dvorak analysis yielding 871.1 mbar (recon found the real pressure to… pic.twitter.com/nKKFbv4g7j

— Backpirch Weather (@BackpirchCrew) October 28, 2025

The International Federation of the Red Cross said up to 1.5 million people in Jamaica—roughly half the island’s population—are expected to be directly affected by Hurricane Melissa, the strongest storm on Earth this year.

“We are okay at the moment but bracing ourselves for the worst,” Jamaican climate activist Tracey Edwards said Tuesday. “I’ve grown weary of these threats, and I do not want to face the next hurricane.”

The International Organization for Migration warned that “the risk of flooding, landslides, and widespread damage is extremely high,” meaning that “many people are likely to be displaced from their homes and in urgent need of shelter and relief.”

Melissa’s landfall came on the same day that United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the international community has failed to prevent planetary warming from surpassing the key 1.5°C threshold “in the next few years.”

Meteorologist Eric Holthaus wrote on social media that “this is the news I’ve dreaded all my life.”

“Humanity has failed to avoid dangerous climate change,” he wrote. “We have now entered the overshoot era. Our new goal is to prevent as many irreversible tipping points from taking hold as we can.”

Climate experts said Hurricane Melissa bears unmistakable fingerprints of the planetary crisis, which is driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.

The warming climate is “clearly making this horrific disaster for Jamaica, Cuba, and the Bahamas even worse,” Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, told the New York Times.

Akshay Deoras, a meteorologist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, told the Associated Press that the Atlantic “is extremely warm right now.”

“And it’s not just the surface,” said Deoras. “The deeper layers of the ocean are also unusually warm, providing a vast reservoir of energy for the storm.”

Amira Odeh, Caribbean campaigner at 350.org, warned in a statement Tuesday that “what is happening in Jamaica is what climate injustice looks like.”

“Every home without electricity, every flooded hospital, every family cut off by the storm is a consequence of political inaction,” said Odeh. “We cannot continue losing Caribbean lives because of the fossil fuel industry’s greed.”

“As world leaders head to COP30, they must understand that every delay, every new fossil fuel project, means more lives lost,” Odeh added. “Jamaica is the latest warning, and Belém must be where we finally see a steer to change courses. The Caribbean is sounding the alarm once again. This time, the world must listen.”