Scientists warn of future superstorms as Hurricane Melissa hit Caribbean
“Once heated at large scale and to depth, the oceans are slow to cool down again; that heat is now in place for years to come, and it just takes the ‘right’ atmospheric conditions for hurricanes to spin up,” said Robert Marsh, professor of oceanography and climate at the University of Southampton.
Melissa, the third Category 5 hurricane of 2025 and the most intense storm ever to strike Jamaica, tore through several countries. According to general reports, millions were affected in Cuba alone, where tens of thousands of homes and hundreds of health facilities and schools sustained damage. Local accounts from Haiti and Jamaica indicate that severe flooding and landslides led to at least 75 deaths.
“Melissa was the strongest hurricane to make landfall on Jamaica, surpassing Hurricane Gilbert in 1988,” said James Baldini, professor of earth sciences at the University of Durham. “It was also the third most intense tropical cyclone in the Atlantic Basin, and the most intense to make landfall.”
The storm reached peak sustained winds of 185 miles per hour and recorded a minimum central pressure of 892 millibars — placing it among the most extreme Atlantic hurricanes ever observed. Baldini noted that its rapid intensification, with wind speeds rising by about 70 mph in just a day, greatly amplified the danger.
Marsh emphasized that Melissa’s winds at landfall were historically rare. “As a landfalling Category 5 hurricane, Melissa was close to unprecedented for the region as a whole over recorded history – one of the top three for landfalling winds over the last century, and unprecedented for Jamaica.”
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