Tropical Storm Melissa grounded to a halt over the central Caribbean about 150 miles south of Jamaica and Haiti early Friday.
Already more than half a foot of rain has been recorded across lower reaches of the Dominican Republic and southern Haiti, with another 10 to 20 inches or more possible from eastern Jamaica eastward to the mountainous terrain of southern Hispaniola through Sunday night.
Melissa’s caught between two weak but competing high pressure steering zones, leading to an agonizing drift that will plague the north-central Caribbean with torrential tropical rains into early next week.
Though the storm’s development has been arrested by relentless wind shear, there are signs the wind shear is beginning to abate, which should allow Melissa to start a gradual strengthening trend later Friday into Saturday.
By late Saturday and Sunday, models are in good agreement that the shear will relax more quickly as Melissa encounters a reservoir of some of the warmest waters in the western hemisphere near and south of Jamaica, which will open the door for a period of rapid intensification into a major hurricane (Category 3 or stronger).
The official forecast from the National Hurricane Center catapults Melissa from a borderline hurricane Saturday afternoon to a Category 4 hurricane before sunrise Monday. Hurricane watches and tropical storm warnings are in effect for Jamaica and the southwest peninsula of Haiti. The hurricane watch will likely be upgraded to a hurricane warning for Jamaica later on Friday.
Melissa will be skirting Jamaica near or to its south during this dangerous period of rapid intensification, which will put the island perilously close to its devastating core by late tomorrow and on Sunday.
Even if Melissa’s destructive eyewall stays south of Jamaica, stinging winds and blinding rains will likely wallop the populous island country into early next week. A close enough approach on Sunday could also push a significant storm surge into its southern coast, including into Kingston Harbour.
Melissa’s grand finale next week
Unfortunately for Jamaica, even if Melissa’s core misses south this weekend, it won’t let them off the hook for a direct hit from a major hurricane next week.
As Melissa inches south and west of Jamaica next Monday and Tuesday, a deep jet stream dip sliding into the western Atlantic will grab hold of it and extract it quickly northeast from Tuesday through early Thursday across or west of Jamaica and then across eastern Cuba and the southeastern Bahamas, possibly near its peak intensity as a powerful major hurricane.
Melissa will get flung into the western Atlantic next Thursday and Friday, passing near or west of Bermuda on its way out.
In Thursday’s newsletter, we mentioned a few outlier scenarios – primarily from Google’s DeepMind – that turned Melissa or what’s left of it back toward the northeast U.S. or Atlantic Canada for late next week. The trend since yesterday has been for even fewer scenarios showing this outcome, and the most likely path accelerates it quickly out to sea late next week.
No threat to Florida from Melissa
We’ve been offered lots of reassurance from the changing jet stream pattern that Melissa won’t be a Florida problem, something we’ve covered all week in this newsletter.
Melissa should stay safely to our east next week, and with no new storms on the horizon into early November, we can hope Mother Nature has finally given the U.S. a pass after 9 consecutive years of hurricane hits.
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