The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😜
Main Topic: Third Update on Hurricane Melissa
Dear Diary. Today will be our third and last installment of links from experts and basic information concerning Hurricane Melissa as our main topic. In the coming days I will be reporting on fatalities and damage from Melissa’s landfalls, though. As of this writing, the system is a CAT2 hurricane racing Northeast through the southeast Bahamas, having weakened considerably from what it was when it initially made landfall in western Jamaica.
Here are some new notes in association with Melissa:
Here is the latest news on Melissa’s aftermath from the Washington Post:
Hurricane Melissa hits Cuba after disaster in Jamaica, Haiti kills over 20 – The Washington Post
Hurricane Melissa hits Cuba; has killed at least 26 in Haiti and Jamaica
At least 20 people in Haiti died Wednesday when a river overflowed. The storm was expected to hit the Bahamas next.
October 29, 2025 at 1:15 p.m. EDT
Category 3 Hurricane Melissa makes landfall in Cuba early on Oct. 29. Data source: NOAA. (Video: Ben Noll)
By Livern Barrett, Ben Noll, Victoria Craw, Sammy Westfall, Widlore Mérancourt and Dan Lamothe
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Cuba early Wednesday as a Category 3 storm after devastating western Jamaica on Tuesday.
Flooding in Haiti, meanwhile, claimed at least 20 lives, an official there told The Washington Post.
Melissa struck near Chivirico, Cuba, with wind speeds of 125 mph around 3 a.m., 14 hours after its first landfall in western Jamaica. As of 11 a.m. Eastern time, Melissa was located about 150 miles south of the Central Bahamas as a Category 2 storm. Maximum winds had decreased to 100 mph.
The storm is accelerating northeast as a midlatitude weather system begins to capture it. That’s expected to swing Melissa toward Bermuda by Thursday night. A hurricane warning is in effect there.
Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a Category 5 hurricane with 185 mph winds. Footage showed flooded roads and destroyed buildings, but the full extent of the damage was not yet clear; Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness told CNN Tuesday night there had been no reports of deaths during the hurricane so far, but “we are expecting that there would be some loss of life.”
At least 20 people died Wednesday morning in Petit-Goâve, Haiti, when the La Digue river overflowed, according to an official from Haiti’s Civil Protection Directorate. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the figure. Officials in Haiti reported three flooding deaths last week, when Melissa was a tropical storm.
The U.S. military and State Department were assessing needs across the region Wednesday, officials said.
The State Department said it was deploying a disaster assistance response team and search-and-rescue teams that will work with affected countries and communities. The Jamaican government has requested assistance, U.S. officials said.
U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in the region from a headquarters in Florida, is making plans to send an assessment team to Jamaica, Col. Emanuel Ortiz said. The team will examine conditions and needs Jamaica may have for lifesaving, urgent humanitarian aid and disaster response operations. He said it was too soon to speculate on what that support might be.
Three people were killed and 13 were injured while preparing for the storm, the country’s health minister said Monday.
Jamaica’s government declared the entire country a disaster area Wednesday, as officials worked to assess damage in the hardest-hit areas: the western parishes of Manchester, St. Elizabeth, Westmoreland, St. James and Hanover. A senior official said Wednesday morning that St. Elizabeth was “underwater.”
People walk in a street before Hurricane Melissa hits the city of Santiago de Cuba on Tuesday. (Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images)
Forecast for Cuba
Some 10 to 20 inches of rain is expected in eastern Cuba on Wednesday and up to 25 inches over mountainous terrain, the National Hurricane Center said. “This will cause life-threatening and potentially catastrophic flash flooding with numerous landslides,” it said.
Peak storm surge of 8 to 12 feet was forecast along Cuba’s southeast coast.
Hurricane warnings covered the Cuban provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo, Holguin and Las Tunas, while a tropical storm warning was in effect for Camaguey.
More than 735,000 people have been evacuated, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez posted on X Tuesday night. Preparations were also underway in the Bahamas, where a national disaster plan had been activated, Prime Minister Philip Davis said in a statement.
Officials at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay in southeastern Cuba planned to assess damage there when weather permitted, spokesman Stephen Strickland said. Conditions on the U.S. base shortly before noon Wednesday were still too unsafe; personnel there were directed to shelter in place.
Before the storm, the Navy evacuated about 860 people, including U.S. troops, civilian employees, contractors, family members and 80 pets to Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, Strickland said.
People cover a car in Santiago de Cuba in preparation for the storm on Tuesday. (Norlys Perez/Reuters)
Melissa’s path
After moving away from Jamaica late Tuesday, Melissa briefly dipped to Category 3 intensity but became a formidable Category 4 storm within hours as it tapped into exceedingly warm ocean water, above 86 degrees, which is high-octane fuel for restrengthening. It then dropped to Category 3 just before making landfall in Cuba.
Melissa’s third and final landfall — forecast as a strong Category 2 or 3 hurricane — is expected in the central or southeastern Bahamas late Wednesday, probably on Long Island or Crooked Island — though the storm’s center could miss the narrow land masses.
Five to 10 inches of rainfall are expected over the southeast Bahamas on Wednesday, which will result in flash flooding in some parts, the Hurricane Center said Wednesday. Storm surge of 5 to 8 feet was also possible in the southeastern Bahamas. A hurricane warning covers the central and southeastern Bahamas.
After that, Melissa is expected to race northward, passing west of Bermuda, where a hurricane watch has been issued, late Thursday into Friday and bring squally rain, strong winds and dangerous seas.
Around the same time, Melissa’s moisture will add fuel to a separate storm that will bring heavy rain and wind from the Mid-Atlantic to New England — one that could produce isolated flooding and wind damage, especially in higher elevations and near the coast.
Melissa is forecast to pass just south of Newfoundland, Canada, late Friday or early Saturday before the storm’s remnants are shredded apart by the jet stream in the open waters of the North Atlantic.
In Jamaica, blue skies will return Wednesday, with those tranquil conditions extending into Cuba and the Bahamas by Thursday. For now, no additional tropical storm threats loom after Melissa.
Melissa’s damage in Jamaica
After making landfall around 1 p.m. Tuesday near New Hope, Jamaica, Melissa ripped across the western part of the country.
Some 77 percent of homes in the country had no electricity Wednesday, the government said.Holness, the Jamaican prime minister, told CNN the government had heard reports of damage to hospitals, residential housing, commercial property and roads, and would work to restore electricity and communications, and address the need for food and shelter starting Wednesday.
He declared the country a disaster area on Tuesday, and an order to prevent price gouging for essential supplies has been renewed. Some 400,000 people have been affected by the hurricane, according to the Jamaican government.
Power outages and damage to infrastructure saw national connectivity drop to 30 percent of ordinary levels, according to internet monitoring group Netblocks.
The U.S. State Department said it had authorized U.S. government employees and their families to leave the country and temporarily reduced staffing at its embassy in Kingston. Tourists were urged to reschedule travel.
Desmond McKenzie, the country’s minister of local government said at a news briefing Tuesday that nearly 15,000 people were staying in shelters. He added that some residents were staying in makeshift shelters and“in most cases, we were able to get limited supplies to those persons within those shelters,” he said.
Videos of destruction in Jamaica’s Black River, about 10 miles southeast of where Melissa made landfall, circulated on social media. At least three families were trapped in homes there, McKenzie said, under difficult conditions for rescue teams. He declined to speculate on their fate with key details still in question. In Cave Valley, across Jamaica’s mountainous interior, flooding left a home submerged.
The Jamaica Observer published video of flooding at Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, showing the roof destroyed and rain pouring in. Authorities had closed the airport last week. Hospitals and police stations in St. Elizabeth were also destroyed, it reported. Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston is expected to stay closed to commercial flights until the end of the week but relief supplies are expected to start arriving by Thursday, according to the Observer.
Jamaica’s Constabulary Force posted a video on social media showing flooded roads and destroyed buildings. The Black River Police Station had become a shelter for residents whose houses had been flooded, it said.
Hurricane chaser Josh Morgerman, who was near Melissa’s landfall location, described: “Frightening power. Whiteout. Roofs tearing off. Gusts like bombs going off. Painful ears. Praise the lord for solid concrete.”
Bryanna Hadaway, who works at the World Food Program’s Caribbean Multi-Country Office, said the team had been sheltering in place in Kingston in “absolutely harrowing” winds.
Aid agencies worked to surge supplies to the region as Melissa approached. “Access will be a major challenge. If the storm surge hits hard, it will be difficult to get humanitarian staff in and move food and relief supplies — alternative airstrips are being prepared,” said Brian Bogart in a statement Tuesday. He leads WFP’s Caribbean Multi-Country Office in Barbados.
Melissa’s record intensity
On Tuesday, Melissa equaled the strongest landfalling Atlantic hurricanes on record, according to wind speed and pressure, tying with Hurricane Dorian in 2019 and the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935.
The Hurricane Center noted that it will take time to fully understand Melissa’s intensity. “While Melissa’s landfall intensity is among the strongest ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, it will take extensive post-analysis to determine exactly where it ranks among landfalling Atlantic hurricanes,” it said.
While Melissa was south of Jamaica, its pace of strengthening was twice the rate needed to qualify as rapid, making the storm extraordinary. But the storm kept defying the odds, intensifying to 185 mph just before landfall in southwestern Jamaica.
Meteorologist Andy Hazelton, citing satellite and hurricane hunter data, suggested Melissa’s winds might have been even stronger, possibly exceeding Hurricane Allen’s record-high 190-mph winds, which happened over the ocean before it made landfall in 1980.
Lamothe reported from Washington; Noll from Auckland, New Zealand; Craw from London; and Westfall from Washington.
Extreme weather
By Livern Barrett, Ben Noll, Victoria Craw, Sammy Westfall, Widlore Mérancourt and Dan Lamothe
Here are more “ET’s” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Wednesday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)