Hurricane Melissa officially makes landfall as Jamaica's strongest storm

Alex Harris, Miami Herald on Oct 28, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

Category 5 Hurricane Melissa officially made landfall on Jamaica on Tuesday morning as the most powerful hurricane to ever strike the island, as well as the third-strongest hurricane to ever form in the Atlantic.

The National Hurricane Center formally declared landfall — when half the eye of a storm is over land — at 1 p.m. in the town of New Hope.

With maximum sustained winds of 185 mph and a pressure of 892 mb, this ties Melissa with the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 for the most powerful storm to make landfall in the Atlantic.

“A very dangerous scenario is now starting to play out in the next few hours as the eye of Melissa moves across Jamaica,” NHC Director Michael Brennan said in a video update Tuesday morning. “Catastrophic wind damage expected in the eye wall here. Total building failure.”

While the most extreme winds are concentrated about 30 miles from the eye of the storm, the broad and powerful storm will affect the entire island — as well as Haiti. It’s bringing up to 30 inches of rain to Jamaica, plus 9 to 13 feet of storm surge above dry land to the southeast of the eye.

It will take most of Tuesday for the storm to cross Jamaica, lashing the island with gusts potentially as high as 200 mph near the eye and in the mountains.

And when Melissa finally draws away from Jamaica, it will take a brief beat before smashing into a second landfall on Cuba’s east coast early Wednesday morning.

Forecasters said it could strike as a Category 4, bringing up to 25 inches of rain and 7 to 11 feet of storm surge to a nation already struggling with a failing power grid and recovering from previous storms.

After grinding across the eastern end of Cuba, forecasters expect Melissa to gear up for a third landfall in as many days, this time on the central and southeastern Bahamas as a Category 2. It could bring up to 10 inches of rain and 4 to 6 feet of storm surge, enough to cause flash flooding and power outages on the islands.

And that might not be the end of Melissa’s destruction. The latest forecast has Bermuda in the cone on Friday, when Melissa could cross near the island as a Category 1 hurricane. For now, it’s too soon to tell if this could be another landfall or just a close call for Bermuda.