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by WILL FOLKS
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Hurricane Melissa – a category five monster – made landfall in southwestern Jamaica near New Hope Cove at 1:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday afternoon as one of the strongest storms in recorded human history.
The massive, powerful system – which had been stalking the island nation for days as it drifted leisurely to the west – pirouetted in the Caribbean Sea on Monday and started a northwestward march toward its rendezvous with destruction.
At landfall, Melissa packed maximum sustained winds of 185 miles per hour – tying her with 2019’s Hurricane Dorian as the strongest system ever to come ashore in the Atlantic basin. Melissa’s central pressure at landfall was just 892 millibars – which tied her with the 1936 Labor Day hurricane for the lowest central pressure ever recorded in a landfalling storm.
In other words, she was the equal of both the strongest and most intense hurricanes ever to impact terra firma.
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Simply incredible imagery of Hurricane Melissa this morning as it approaches Jamaica. pic.twitter.com/iNpObnBWmo
— CIRA (@CIRA_CSU) October 28, 2025
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Melissa hit Jamaica with everything she had… arriving at peak intensity and doing untold damage to the island.
“Crashing sounds — like an explosion,” veteran storm chaser Josh Morgerman noted. “Wreckage flying down the street. Trees bending way over. Very unpleasant pressure in the ears.”
“Frightening power. Whiteout. Roofs tearing off. Gusts like bombs going off. Painful ears. Praise the lord for solid concrete,” Morgerman added in a subsequent post.
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A thread of videos from today’s flight into Hurricane Melissa
— Tropical Cowboy of Danger (@FlynonymousWX) October 27, 2025
In this first one we are entering from the southeast just after sunrise and the bright arc on the far northwest eye wall is the light just beginning to make it over the top from behind us. pic.twitter.com/qGdpp7lbCN
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Melissa formed over the central Caribbean last Tuesday (October 21, 2025), and underwent rapid intensification over the weekend. “Rapid intensification” is defined as a 35-mile per hour increase in maximum sustained winds over a 24-hour period. In Melissa’s case, she more than doubled that standard – with several hours to spare. With warm water fueling her spectacular growth, Melissa went from a tropical storm with 70 mile per hour sustained winds at 11:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday morning (October 25, 2025) to a category four storm with 140 mile per hour sustained winds by 5:00 a.m. EDT the following day.
That’s a 70-mile per hour increase in wind speed in just eighteen hours.
Melissa underwent a second – albeit less intense – round of rapid intensification beginning at 2:00 p.m. EDT on Sunday (October 26, 2025), when her sustained winds climbed from 140 miles per hour to 175 miles per hour by 2:00 p.m. EDT next day.
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May Pen Bridge, (New Highway Bridge). Clarendon.
— Giovanni R. Dennis (@GiovanniRDennis) October 28, 2025
Rio Minho roaring.#TrackingMelissa #HurricaneMelissa #Jamaica @CVMTV pic.twitter.com/axMEQY9K95
#HappeningNow
— Giovanni R. Dennis (@GiovanniRDennis) October 28, 2025
This is Spaulding, Clarendon presently#TrackingMelissa #HurricaneMelissa #Jamaica @CVMTV pic.twitter.com/X8eCpML9LF
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A “sustained wind” is a wind speed that is measured at a specific level for a duration of at least one minute. Pacific cyclone Hurricane Patricia currently holds the record for highest sustained winds ever recorded – 215 miles per hour – although this 2015 storm weakened to a strong category four system by the time it made landfall in Jalisco, Mexico.
The strongest storm ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean was Hurricane Allen, which briefly registered maximum sustained winds of 190 miles per hour as it moved through the Yucatán Channel in early August of 1980. Allen weakened to a category three system prior to making landfall near the U.S.-Mexico border, however.
Despite projections of a busy season, 2025 has seen little in the way of tropical impacts – due mostly to the fact that nearly all major storms have stayed offshore. While there is still a month remaining on the tropical calendar – which commences on June 1 and ends on November 30 each year – as of this publication no hurricanes have made landfall in the United States.
The only tropical system to impact the American coastline so far this season was Tropical Storm Chantal, which made landfall near Litchfield Beach, S.C. on June 6, 2025.
Stay tuned to FITSNews as we continue to follow developments in the tropics…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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