Melissa’s 10-day run as a tropical cyclone – culminating in a catastrophic Category 5 strike on western Jamaica Tuesday – will end Friday as it transitions into a powerful non-tropical storm, clipping Atlantic Canada’s southern Avalon Peninsula tonight before heading swiftly out to sea.
Hurricane Melissa was racing away from Bermuda early Friday after leaving a trail of destruction across Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba, where the storm killed dozens, flooded towns and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
Melissa wasted no time harvesting a rich reservoir of warm water in the central Caribbean south of Jamaica on Saturday to intensify at an extreme rate – from a 70 mph tropical storm Saturday morning to a 140 mph Category 4 hurricane before sunrise Sunday.
Residents and visitors across Jamaica are bracing for Tropical Storm Melissa, which is expected to strengthen into a major hurricane, bringing heavy rain, strong winds, and the threat of flooding and landslides.