Melissa’s 10-day journey as a tropical cyclone – which culminated with one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record and a calamitous Category 5 collision with western Jamaica on Tuesday – will come to an end Friday as it transitions into a powerful non-tropical wintertime storm, clipping the southern Avalon Peninsula along Atlantic Canada tonight on a swift exit out to sea.
Melissa made its closest pass to Bermuda around midnight Friday as borderline Category 2 hurricane with sustained winds of 90 to 100 mph.
Though the center of Melissa passed about 130 miles west of Bermuda, winds at Bermuda’s L. F. Wade International Airport gusted to 69 mph – nearly hurricane strength (74 mph or stronger) – at around 1 AM local (midnight eastern time).
Winds at elevation in the hilly terrain of the British Overseas Territory gusted higher at times, with the anemometer atop the Commissioner’s House at the National Museum of Bermuda on Commissioner’s Point clocking a 99 mph gust at about 115 ft.
That said, this particular wind gauge tends to run hot, since it’s located near the top of the building with a hipped-roof, which accelerates the winds, and probably isn’t representative of gusts elsewhere on the island.
Nevertheless, Melissa made its presence known in Bermuda but thankfully for the small archipelago that’s been at the receiving end of multiple passer-by-hurricanes this season – including Category 2 Imelda whose strong core struck less than a month ago – Melissa was a quick hitter.
As of early Friday, about half of Bermuda was without power from Melissa’s strong winds, but no major incidents have been reported so far, according to a government update Friday morning.
Melissa lifts the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season to above average levels
The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season has been chock full of twists and turns, including a remarkable 20-day dry spell without a single active tropical system through the traditional peak weeks of the season in late August and early September.
This surprising drought set seasonal activity back noticeably, with overall hurricane season activity – as measured by the Accumulated Cyclone Energy or ACE – running well below average through most of September.
Similar to the 2024 hurricane season, however, the 2025 season sprung to life by late September and October, rattling off three major (Category 3 or stronger) hurricanes in succession, including two Category 5 hurricanes – Humberto and Melissa.
Melissa this week pushed the comeback season to above average levels for the year, even if no additional named storms form through November.
Despite a scare with Imelda at the end of September, the U.S. managed to stay out of the path of any of the 7 named storms that formed over the past month and a half.
It’s been 386 days since the U.S. was last hit by a hurricane (Milton on October 10, 2024), the longest stretch without a hurricane landfall in this country since 2016.
Atlantic closed for business with only 30 days to go
In most Novembers, the hurricane season tails off quickly. Development tends to be confined to the far southern reaches of the Caribbean off Nicaragua and Honduras or to the subtropical waters of the open Atlantic.
Right now, we don’t see any credible development threats in either area for the next week or two. All of our reliable forecast models are a blank canvas across the Atlantic into mid-November, so we’ll hope that’s a sign the hurricane season is nearing its end.
Only 30 days now until the official end of the Atlantic hurricane season.
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