Hurricane Melissa Has Meteorologists Terrified

Meteorologists who They have spent the past few days monitoring the rapid development of Hurricane Melissa in the Atlantic Ocean, sounding the alarm about the storm, which is set to make landfall in Jamaica today as a Category 5 hurricane. Experts say that the storm’s continuing and increasing intensity is remarkable, and has the qualifications to become a historic hurricane.

“When I look at a cloud pattern, I will tell you as a meteorologist and a professional — and a person — that it’s beautiful, but it’s terrifying,” says Sean Sublette, a Virginia-based meteorologist. “I know what’s under those clouds.”

There are several ways to measure the strength of hurricanes. One is by air pressure: the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm becomes. Early Tuesday morning, as it approached Jamaica, Melissa was measuring a minimum pressure of 901 millibars — lower than Hurricane Katrina’s peak low pressure of 902 millibars and the lowest pressure ever recorded in a hurricane late this year, according to Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach.

Incredibly, as of Tuesday morning, Melissa hadn’t finished condensing. At noon EDT, the National Weather Service posted an update measuring the storm’s pressure at 892 mb. If it makes landfall at this pressure, it will be tied with the disastrous Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, which struck Florida, as the most intense hurricane in terms of pressure to make landfall.

“This record has been around for 90 years,” says Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Sciences. “It would be too big if that went down.”

Having so much pressure drop as a hurricane approaches land — especially around higher ground — is “a really cool thing,” McNoldy says. “Normally, a mountainous island, like Jamaica, would start to feel like it might interrupt it a little bit and start weakening it. But it’s actually still strengthening right now.”

The second way to measure hurricanes is wind speed. Melissa also stunned meteorologists with its strength here, as well as the speed with which it intensified. Winds inside Melissa reached just 70 mph on Saturday as the storm formed in the Atlantic Basin, less than 74 mph for the lightest Category 1 storms. However, just 24 hours later, the speed had jumped to 140 mph, Class 4 power. Melissa’s winds continued to increase throughout Monday and Tuesday. As of 10 a.m. Tuesday, maximum sustained winds were 185 mph.

“It’s very rare for a storm to intensify quickly when it’s already severe,” McNoldy says. “You usually see rapid intensification happen when it’s a tropical storm or a Category 1 or 2 hurricane. That’s when it’s very common for that to happen. But not when it’s already at the higher end of intensity.”