Melissa set to bring ‘catastrophic’ threat, agency warns
Hurricane Melissa is expected to bring “catastrophic and life-threatening winds, flooding and storm surge to Jamaica” later on Monday and on Tuesday, the US National Hurricane Center has just warned in a post on social media.
It’s now 7.09pm local time Monday on the island.
The category 5 storm is on track to make landfall on Tuesday before reaching Cuba later in the day and then heading towards the Bahamas.
As the Guardian has reported, the Meteorological Service of Jamaica’s director is warning that no part of Jamaica is likely be spared Melissa’s deadly combination of rapid intensification and snail-paced advance.
Evan Thompson also said the rapid strengthening was notable:
That is something that would not always happen, and this is usually indicative of the kind of warm waters that we’re experiencing that we believe is somewhat related to climate change.
Key events
Closing summary
It’s 11.20pm Monday in Jamaica and we’re about to close this blog and resume our live coverage later in the evening. Here’s an overview of the key news, and you can read our latest full report here.
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Hurricane Melissa intensified into a category 5 storm on Monday as it drew closer to Jamaica, where forecasters expected it to unleash catastrophic flooding, landslides and widespread damage.
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The storm was on track to make landfall on Tuesday in Jamaica before coming ashore in Cuba later in the day and then heading toward the Bahamas. It has been blamed for seven deaths in the northern Caribbean as it headed towards Jamaica.
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Jamaican prime minister Andrew Holness said in anticipation of the coming damage: “I have been on my knees in prayer.”
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Melissa was centred about 155 miles (245km) south-west of Kingston on Monday night local time. The system had maximum sustained winds of 175mph (280km/h) and was moving north-west at 2mph (4km/h), according to the US National Hurricane Centre.
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At Melissa’s category 5 strength on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, it would be the strongest hurricane to hit the island since record-keeping began in 1851.
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Parts of eastern Jamaica could see up to 30 inches (76cm) of rain while western Haiti could get 16 inches (40cm), the hurricane centre said, citing the likelihood of “catastrophic flash flooding and numerous landslides”. Jamaica faced “multiple life-threatening hazards”, it said. Among them was up to 13 feet (four metres) of storm surge inundation on parts of the south coast.
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Mandatory evacuations were ordered in flood-prone communities in Jamaica, with buses ferrying people to safe shelter, although some people insisted on staying. Several towns on Jamaica’s southern coast reported power outages as winds picked up throughout the night.
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Jamaican government officials said they were worried that fewer than 1,000 people were in the more than 130 shelters open across the island.
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In eastern Cuba, a hurricane warning was in effect for the Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo and Holguin provinces, while a tropical storm warning was in effect for Las Tunas. Up to 20 inches (51cm) of rain was forecast for parts of Cuba, along with a significant storm surge along the coast.
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Cuban officials said they would evacuate more than 600,000 people from the region, including Santiago, the island’s second-largest city. Long bus lines formed in some areas.
With agencies
Agence France-Presse has also spoken to some residents of Jamaica as Hurricane Melissa bears down on the island. Jamal Peters, a 34-year-old front manager at a hotel in Port Royal, is staying put during the storm.
“Jamaicans on the whole aren’t the type of people who would just get up and leave their home,” Peters said.
“They’d prefer to stay. And if a window blows out or something like that they can be there.”
Peters took up his post last month, and so far preparations at the 63-room waterfront hotel have involved moving guests to higher floors, battening down wherever possible, trimming trees and clearing out boats.
“We are still bracing for impact,” he said.
But for the most part, because this is not our first hurricane, Jamaicans would have been prepared for what’s to come.
Continuing with St Elizabeth resident Jason Henzell, who is chairman of a hotel in Treasure Beach in southern Jamaica: he said that despite his efforts to “lead by example” and encourage other residents to leave the area and seek shelter elsewhere, some have chosen to remain.
Natricia Duncan and Anthony Lugg report that Henzell said he believed there would be a mandatory evacuation order at some point. He also expected there to be an order to evacuate patients from the Black River hospital, which is extremely vulnerable because it is right on the coast.
Many of those who remained, he said, were holding on to their faith in God.
Henzell said:
Jamaicans are very deep in their faith. And I don’t say that as a means of mockery, I mean it with a tremendous amount of sincerity and respect. So, as a people, we [tend] to think that we can pray something away. And for the most part, we have been spared.
So there is a feeling as though the Lord is going to protect us. He’s going to take [the hurricane] into a different direction. And that faith and belief has saved us on many occasions. But you know … at some point, the luck is going to run out, the blessings are going to run out.
And I just, I hope and pray this is not that day. But it is looking like it is that day.
More here from Natricia Duncan and Anthony Lugg, reporting from Jamaica as the hurricane nears:
St Elizabeth resident Jason Henzell, who is chairman of Jakes Hotel in Treasure Beach, a popular tourist destination, said he decided to leave his home and relocate his family to Kingston as he saw the effects of the storm.
He told the Guardian:
Based on what I saw in Treasure Beach earlier today and the fact that this is now a hurricane-level category five, and that the new projection is that it’s going to make landfall between Treasure Beach and Black River, I took the decision to relocate to Kingston.
People that don’t live on the south, on the coast, they don’t understand storm surge. It is when the entire sea gets much higher. And I was estimating that we were seeing a storm surge of about three to four metres and then probably three-metre waves on top of that. So you’re looking at an increase of the top of a wave being about 18 feet [5.5 metres], which is very threatening to our coastal erosion, very threatening to any type of structure which is right on the coast.
‘I’m really scared,’ says author in high-risk area amid early damage
Natricia Duncan and Anthony Lugg, who are in Jamaica and reporting for the Guardian, have been speaking to people readying as Hurricane Melissa approaches and have filed this:
Publisher and author Ava Brown, who owns the annual Black River film festival, is currently in St Elizabeth, which is expected to be one of the worst-affected areas.
The single mother said that, despite taking every possible precaution, she was scared.
I am a single mom so I had one of my neighbours help me to batten down my windows. We had to move certain things away from the house. I chopped down banana trees just because if they are rooted up you lose them, but if you chop them, they can spring back up again.
Brown said she was stocked up with extra food and other essentials.
But I’m really scared. It’s scary because, for example, you worry about how to ration the food.
At the moment, we have a lot of wind, heavy rains, flooding and trees are falling down. There have also been unconfirmed news that some buildings have already lost their roofs. I know that my parents, which is 10 minutes from here, haven’t had electricity since morning.
You feel scared because if it’s like this at the moment and the storm has not fully arrived, can you imagine when it really shows up?
Brown, who spends time between the UK and Jamaica, was planning to return to Britain on Wednesday but says that that is now very unlikely.
Here are some of the latest images coming in from Jamaica as people prepare for the expected arrival of Hurricane Melissa in full force on Tuesday.
Up to four-metre Jamaican storm surges forecast
Continuing with the update from Dr Michael Brennan, the US National Hurricane Center’s Miami director said Melissa could also cause up to 13 feet (four metres) of storm surge inundation on parts of Jamaica’s south coast.
With the storm’s centre forecast to reach Jamaica’s coast sometime early Tuesday, destructive winds were expected in Melissa’s eyewall as it made landfall and moved across the island.
Brennan said:
So we could have complete damage, destruction of shelters, homes and buildings in the path of that eyewall, not just along the coast but in areas of high terrain across the central part of the island as the centre of Melissa moves across the island during the day on Tuesday …
Everyone in Jamaica needs to be in their safe place now to ride out the storm all the way through tomorrow.
We’re also very concerned about the potential for life-threatening storm surge inundation near and to the right of where the centre crosses the south coast early tomorrow, with the potential for nine to 13 feet [2.7 to 4 metres] of inundation…
We’re also expecting destructive wave action along the coast as well, and significant storm surge all the way well east of the centre, over in the Kingston area.
The head of the US National Hurricane Center in Miami gave an update about three hours ago on Hurricane Melissa’s movements as it was located about 140 miles (225km) south-west of Kingston, Jamaica, with maximum sustained winds of about 175 mph.
Looking at a live map, Dr Michael Brennan said:
You see a well-defined eye here in satellite imagery. And Melissa has started to move a little more to the north now – the motion is around north-west at about 3 miles per hour. If you remember earlier today it was moving west, so we’re starting to see that turn to the north and then the north north-east – it’s going the bring the centre of Melissa to the south coast of Jamaica early Tuesday morning.
“Multiple life-threatening hazards” were in play for the island, Brennan said in his update, which was streamed on YouTube.
Melissa set to bring ‘catastrophic’ threat, agency warns
Hurricane Melissa is expected to bring “catastrophic and life-threatening winds, flooding and storm surge to Jamaica” later on Monday and on Tuesday, the US National Hurricane Center has just warned in a post on social media.
It’s now 7.09pm local time Monday on the island.
The category 5 storm is on track to make landfall on Tuesday before reaching Cuba later in the day and then heading towards the Bahamas.
As the Guardian has reported, the Meteorological Service of Jamaica’s director is warning that no part of Jamaica is likely be spared Melissa’s deadly combination of rapid intensification and snail-paced advance.
Evan Thompson also said the rapid strengthening was notable:
That is something that would not always happen, and this is usually indicative of the kind of warm waters that we’re experiencing that we believe is somewhat related to climate change.
AI-generated videos have been clogging social media feeds as Hurricane Melissa heads towards Jamaica, diverting attention from critical safety information about the storm.
Agence France-Presse reports it has surfaced dozens of fakes, most bearing watermarks for OpenAI’s text-to-video model Sora. The videos depicted a range of fabricated scenarios, from dramatic newscasts and shots of severe flooding to images of sharks in the water as well as poignant scenes of human suffering.
Others appeared to show locals – often voiced with strong Jamaican accents that seemed aimed at reinforcing stereotypes – partying, boating, jet skiing, swimming or otherwise minimising the threat of what forecasters have warned could be the island’s most violent weather on record.
Jamaica’s information minister, Senator Dana Morris Dixon, said she and other ministers were jointly taking part in a Monday press conference to give “correct information” about the approaching monster storm.
Dixon said:
I am in so many WhatsApp groups, and I see all of these videos coming. Many of them are fake. And so we urge you to please listen to the official channels.
More reporting here from Natricia Duncan and Anthony Lugg speaking to people in Jamaica already affected by Hurricane Melissa before it makes landfall.
Farmer Leslie Burton, who also lives in Portland, has been without power.
“Some of the little things in my refrigerator I have to dispose of, and my neighbours are in the same problem,” he told the Guardian, also saying he was concerned about his animals.
“I tried to put some zinc over them but the breeze blew them away,” he said, adding that he had to find a way to protect them, because they were his livelihood.
I do all the preparations even for my house but now I just have to hope for the best.
A fellow resident, shop-owner Maria Douglas, is also without electricity. “My ice-cream is melting. I have to be giving them away as well as drinks,” she said. “The meat is still frozen but I’m not sure how long those will last, so it’s gonna be a big loss.
We didn’t expect the electricity to go off so early otherwise we could have been better organised.
If the hurricane doesn’t reach here yet and we are in this situation, I don’t know what’s going to happen when it actually reaches.
The Guardian’s Natricia Duncan and Anthony Lugg, who are on the ground in Jamaica, report:
Residents across the country say they are scared as updates predict worst-case scenarios and the effects of the storm begin to be felt, even before it lands in Jamaica.
Desrick Kenton, a resident from Portland in the north-east coast, said the rattling of his zinc roof convinced him to head to a shelter.
Speaking to the Guardian from inside the shelter, he said:
When I heard my zinc rattling in the night, I said ‘in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth’, not another minute, and I grabbed my suitcase and say I’m heading to the Manchioneal primary school shelter.
Asked why he thinks there are people in the community who are refusing to move, he said:
The spirit of God has to touch some of the people before they move. But I tell them despite the fact you may have a concrete structure, it doesn’t matter, if you are living in a low-lying area, sort out yourself and move out to the best shelter.
The hurricane’s rapid intensification is linked to the climate crisis
Oliver Milman
The extraordinary intensification of Hurricane Melissa, set to be one of the strongest storms to ever hit Jamaica, is probably a symptom of the rapid heating of the world’s oceans, scientists have said.
Scientists say this is the fourth storm in the Atlantic this year to undergo rapid intensification of its wind speed and power. This sort of intensification has been linked to the human-caused climate crisis, which is causing oceans to become hotter.
“That part of the Atlantic is extremely warm right now – around 30C [86F], which is 2 to 3C above normal,” said Akshay Deoras, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, in the United Kingdom. “And it’s not just the surface. The deeper layers of the ocean are also unusually warm, providing a vast reservoir of energy for the storm.”
Last year, the world’s oceans were the warmest on record, continuing a recent trend of record-breaking marine heat. Climate Central, a climate non-profit, has said that the extra heat in the Atlantic has been made about 700 times more likely due to the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and other human activities.
“Climate change is fundamentally changing our weather,” said Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist at Climate Central, a US-based research group.
“It does not mean that every single tropical cyclone is going to go through rapid or super-rapid intensification. However, in our warmer world, it will continue to increase the likelihood of storms going through rapid and super-rapid intensification,” she added.
A 2023 study had found that Atlantic hurricanes are now more than twice as likely as before to intensify rapidly from minor storms to powerful and catastrophic events.
Jamaicans take shelter as Hurricane Melissa turns toward Jamaica’s south coast
The Guardian’s Natricia Duncan and Anthony Lugg in Jamaica report:
Jamaicans have started to take shelter from Hurricane Melissa as high winds topple trees and cause power cuts ahead of the category 5 storm making landfall on Tuesday.
The slow-moving giant, the strongest hurricane to hit the island since records began in 1851, is increasing in intensity and forecast to linger over the island. Authorities fear it will unleash catastrophic flooding, landslides and extensive infrastructure damage.
In the south-western parish of St Elizabeth, winds are already becoming ferocious, with one tree falling on to electricity poles and knocking out power.
The parish also borne the brunt of Hurricane Beryl, which caused historic levels of destruction in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and Jamaica last year. Some people say they have only recently completed work on their properties after Beryl.
The director of the Meteorological Service of Jamaica, Evan Thompson, has been warning that no part of the island is likely be spared Melissa’s deadly combination of rapid intensification and snail-paced advance.
“If it continues as projected in terms of the turn toward the island, we should therefore on Tuesday look for the hurricane force winds starting to impact southern coastal areas and then gradually spreading as the system moves closer to the coastline,” he said
The employees at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) – who are forecasting and modeling Melissa’s path – are currently not being paid amid the US government shutdown.
Although the National Weather Service – which includes the NHC – serve “critical functions” per the commerce department, and will continue to operate at full capacity during the shutdown, the agency’s employees will not receive paychecks until the shutdown is over.
Jamaica PM warns of ‘significant’ impact of hurricane
Jamaica’s prime minister Andrew Holnes said he doesn’t believe that “any infrastructure within this region that could withstand a Category 5 storm, so there could be significant dislocation.”
In an interview with CNN, he said: “I urge all Jamaicans and people who are friendly well-wishers of Jamaica, to continue to pray that this hurricane does not hit us directly.”
Hurricane Melissa has begun its long anticipated slow turn towards the north, and is positioning itself for a direct hit on Jamaica’s south coast early on Tuesday, the director of the National Hurricane Center (NHC) has said in a Monday afternoon update.
Dr Mike Brennan said the slow-moving storm was about 140 miles south west of Kingston, Jamaica, at 5pm ET, and crawling towards the north west at about 3mph.
“Earlier today [it] was moving west, so we’re starting to see that turn to the north, and then the north northeast,” he said in a video briefing on YouTube.
“It’s going to bring the center of Melissa to the south coast of Jamaica early Tuesday morning. We’re expecting destructive winds in the eye wall of Melissa as it makes landfall and moves across the island, so we can have complete damage, destruction of shelters, homes and buildings in the path of that eye wall, not just along the coast, but in areas of high terrain across the central part of the island.”
Brennan said he expected nine to 13 feet of storm surge inundation, “destructive wave action along the coast” to beyond Kingston, and the potential for up to 30 inches of rain.
“Everyone in Jamaica needs to be in their safe place now to ride out the storm all the way through tomorrow,” he said.
Despite funding cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the ongoing government shutdown, the NHC has promised to maintain a full operation during the storm, including regular website updates, video briefings such as the one Brennan just gave, and regular appearances on television and radio networks to keep people informed.
