Jamaica Forever Changed: Harsh Before And After

Hurricane Melissa made a historic, catastrophic Category 5 landfall in Jamaica, then raked through southeast Cuba and the southeast Bahamas before swiping Bermuda, while it also wrung out days of prolific, flooding rainfall in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

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Melissa's Genesis

Melissa began as a tropical wave that moved west off the coast of Africa. Five days before it would become Melissa, the National Hurricane Center first assigned it odds of tropical development on Oct. 16.

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The tropical wave reached the Windward Islands and eastern Caribbean Sea by Oct. 19, slowly becoming more organized. It was given the tag "Invest 98L," a naming convention the NHC uses to identify systems that could develop, allowing more sophisticated hurricane models to be run.

Up until this point, the Caribbean Sea had not seen a named storm at all in the season, but it was looking likely that Melissa was going to form.

And that came just a couple of days later when the NHC named Tropical Storm Melissa on Oct. 21 at 11 a.m. EDT, the 13th storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season.

That was roughly on par with the average date of the 13th storm from 1991 through 2020 (Oct. 25), according to the NHC. It's also one storm shy of the average number of storms for an entire season, 14.

Explosive Growth

At first, Melissa was slow to develop as it moved very slowly to the west, and its center reformed in different spots. But as it approached the warmest waters of the Caribbean, the situation changed quickly.

Wind shear that had been putting a cap on its development weakened, and the storm fully utilized the warm Caribbean water as fuel.

Melissa then went from a tropical storm with winds of 70 mph at 11 a.m. on Oct. 25 to winds of 140 mph just 24 hours later.

And Melissa wasn’t done there.

The storm strengthened further and reached Category 5 strength at 5 a.m. on Oct. 27, the third Category 5 hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, as lightning lit up the hurricane's eyewall.

(MORE: Rapid Intensification Is More Common Than You Think)

And it still wasn’t done strengthening.

As the storm turned toward Jamaica, it continued to intensify, reaching maximum sustained winds of 185 mph.

Melissa maintained Category 5 status for 36 straight hours as it made its slow, agonizing turn northward toward Jamaica. According to WPLG-TV hurricane expert Michael Lowry, only four other Atlantic hurricanes spent as much time or more at Category 5 intensity.

Melissa was the strongest tropical cyclone anywhere on Earth in 2025 through the end of October, even stronger than any western or eastern Pacific typhoon or hurricane, respectively.

A Storm For The History Books

Melissa made landfall in Jamaica at Category 5 intensity at 1 p.m. EDT on Oct. 28.

Not only was it Jamaica's most intense hurricane landfall on record, but in preliminary data, Melissa tied for the strongest Atlantic Basin landfall on record with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane and 2019's Hurricane Dorian by both pressure (892 millibars) and maximum sustained winds (185 mph).

It was also the first Category 5 landfall anywhere in the Atlantic Basin since Dorian slammed the northwestern Bahamas beginning on Sept. 1, 2019.

Melissa also tied for the second-strongest Atlantic Basin hurricane based on peak winds, only behind 1980's Hurricane Allen. Only Wilma in 2005 and Gilbert in 1988 were stronger, by pressure, than Melissa at its peak.

(MORE: Where Melissa Ranked In History)

Jamaica's Impacts

Impacts were particularly devastating for Jamaica as the Category 5 hurricane was also slow-moving upon landfall. Outer bands of the storm lashed the nation, and tropical-storm-force winds were ongoing as the storm initially moved west through the Caribbean just south of the island.

But then the storm turned north and slowly churned toward Jamaica, just as the NHC predicted.

Conditions deteriorated as the wind and rain increased and the storm’s strongest winds, torrential rainfall and powerful storm surge impacted particularly the western part of the island.

(WATCH: Melissa Makes Landfall In Jamaica)

The day after landfall saw over 25,000 people packed into shelters after Melissa’s sheer power destroyed people’s homes. Up to 77% of the island was without power after landfall.

The southwestern Jamaican city of Black River — home to about 5,000 people — was in desperate need of assistance.

Santa Cruz in Jamaica’s St. Elizabeth Parish saw a landslide that turned streets into mud pits. Residents attempted to protect their homes by sweeping out water, as winds pulled off part of the roof at a local high school that was being used as a shelter.

A landslide blocked the main roads of Santa Cruz, where the streets were reduced to mud pits. Residents swept water from homes as they tried to salvage belongings.

Daryl Vaz, the Jamaican Transportation Minister, said two of the island’s airports reopened for relief flights only on Wednesday. United Nations agencies and nonprofits are on standby to help provide basic goods to those in need.

Western Jamaica's Westmoreland Parish also saw numerous reports of damaged homes and buildings.

(PHOTOS: Destruction In Jamaica After Melissa)

Hispaniola

While the landfall focus was on Jamaica, Hispaniola was soaked with round after round of locally heavy rainfall for nine days during this Melissa saga.

Rainfall totals across southern parts of Haiti were the worst as the slow-moving Melissa continued to churn moisture into the region. The NHC forecast up to 40 inches of total rainfall in southern Hispaniola.

Rainfall across this area is especially devastating due to Haiti’s geography, so flash flooding and numerous landslides occur with rainfall of this quantity in such a short period of time.

Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency said Hurricane Melissa killed at least 20 people, including 10 children, in Petit-Goâve, where more than 160 homes were damaged and 80 others destroyed. That preliminary death toll will likely rise as efforts to search in the hard-hit areas continue.

(MORE: Melissa Compounds Haiti's Misery)

Cuba

The mountains of Jamaica greatly disrupted the center of the storm. A very clear eye had been visible at landfall but was quickly filled in as the mountains shredded the tight and well-defined eye.

By the time the storm moved off of Jamaica just a few hours later, the winds had dropped to 145 mph.

But just because the storm weakened slightly, the threats were far from over for Cuba.

Melissa made its second landfall before sunrise on Oct. 29 in far southeastern Cuba. According to the NHC, the Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph came ashore near the town of Chivirico around 3:10 a.m. EDT. Guantanamo Bay reported wind gusts up to 75 mph earlier on Oct. 29.

It was the country's strongest landfall since 2016's Matthew.

The storm was moving faster than when it impacted Jamaica, but rainfall totals were still forecast to reach 25 inches, and powerful wind gusts and storm surge to 12 feet were forecast.

About 735,000 people were evacuated to shelters before Melissa arrived. Officials in Cuba reported collapsed houses, blocked mountain roads and roofs blown off buildings. The town of El Cobre in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba was one of the hardest hit.

Bahamas, Then Bermuda

After moving off of Cuba the afternoon of Oct. 29, Melissa plowed through the southeast Bahamas at Category 2 intensity, bringing hurricane-force winds and rainfall up to 10 inches. The Turks and Caicos saw tropical-storm-force winds and 3 inches of rainfall.

Among the hardest hit were Acklins and Crooked islands, where a private weather station reported sustained winds of 76 mph and a wind gust of 85 mph. Some homes on Crooked Island were flattened and roads were blocked by debris and sand.

Bermuda was then grazed by Melissa on Oct. 30 into the early-morning hours of Oct. 31. Winds gusted to 69 mph at L.F. Wade International Airport, while an elevated weather station at the National Museum of Bermuda clocked a 98-mph gust as Melissa made its closest pass.

Coincidentally, Bermuda was hit by Category 2 Hurricane Imelda on the night of Oct. 1, then was swiped by Melissa near the end of the month.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.