Hurricane Melissa Heads Toward Bermuda Tonight Following Historic Jamaica Category 5 Landfall Jonathan Erdman October 30, 2025 at 3:40 AM 1 Hurricane Melissa has left the Bahamas behind following its historic Category 5 landfall in Jamaica and southeast Cuba lashing. It now has its sights on Bermuda tonight before becoming a North Atlantic nontropical low this weekend. The devastating hurricane made landfall early Tuesday afternoon near New Hope, Jamaica, as a Category 5 with winds of 185 mph and a pressure of 892 millibars, a historic strike that will lead to months and years of recovery.
- - Hurricane Melissa Heads Toward Bermuda Tonight Following Historic Jamaica Category 5 Landfall
Jonathan Erdman October 30, 2025 at 3:40 AM
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Hurricane Melissa has left the Bahamas behind following its historic Category 5 landfall in Jamaica and southeast Cuba lashing. It now has its sights on Bermuda tonight before becoming a North Atlantic non-tropical low this weekend.
The devastating hurricane made landfall early Tuesday afternoon near New Hope, Jamaica, as a Category 5 with winds of 185 mph and a pressure of 892 millibars, a historic strike that will lead to months and years of recovery. This landfall will go down in the record books as one of the strongest anywhere in the Atlantic Basin.
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Happening Now
Melissa is now accelerating into the open Atlantic toward Bermuda after plowing through the southeast Bahamas. Melissa's wind field has grown since its interaction with Cuba.
In the Bahamas, a private weather station at Pitts Town on Crooked Island reported sustained winds of 76 mph and a wind gust of 85 mph Wednesday night.
There are still a few bands of rain lingering across portions of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos, but those should come to an end later today.
Forecast
Hurricane Melissa is expected to make its closest pass to Bermuda late tonight at Category 2 intensity.
Tropical storm force winds will develop in Bermuda later today, and hurricane conditions are expected tonight. Some coastal flooding is possible in Bermuda through tonight in areas where winds blown onshore.
Fortunately, Melissa is moving much faster now as it moves farther north, so only about an inch of rain is expected in Bermuda, and conditions should improve quickly later Friday morning.
After that, Melissa should morph into a post-tropical low over the North Atlantic, brushing Newfoundland, Canada, Friday night. Coupled with the jet stream, its remnants could bring some wind and rain to Ireland and the United Kingdom early next week.
Current Status, Forecast PathMelissa's History
Tropical Storm Melissa formed last Tuesday morning, the 13th storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, in the central Caribbean Sea.
Melissa was the first storm of the season to track into the Caribbean Sea. As you can see in the season-to-date tracks map below, most other storms and hurricanes have curled north of the Caribbean Sea this season.
That's due either to steering winds in the Atlantic, or hostile conditions for development in the Caribbean Sea prior to Melissa.
2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season Tracks To Date
That's roughly on par with the average date of the 13th storm from 1991 through 2020 (Oct. 25), according to the National Hurricane Center. It's also one storm shy of the average number of storms for an entire season, 14.
However, it was almost a month later than the average fifth hurricane date of September 28.
Melissa then underwent extreme rapid intensification from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane in just 24 hours from Saturday morning through last Sunday morning, feeding off the deep, warm water of the Caribbean Sea. It became the season's fifth hurricane.
It then became the third Category 5 hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season early Monday morning as lightning lit up the hurricane's eyewall.
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Melissa maintained Category 5 status for 36 straight hours as it made its slow, agonizing turn northward toward Jamaica. According to WPLG-TV hurricane expert Michael Lowry, only four other Atlantic hurricanes spent as much time or more at Category 5 intensity.
Melissa was the strongest tropical cyclone we've seen anywhere on Earth this year, even stronger than any western or eastern Pacific typhoon or hurricane, respectively.
In preliminary data, Melissa tied for the strongest Atlantic Basin landfall on record with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane and 2019's Hurricane Dorian. The storm also tied for the second strongest storm based on peak winds, only behind 1980's Hurricane Allen.
(MORE: Where Melissa Ranked In History)
It was also the first Category 5 landfall anywhere in the Atlantic Basin since Dorian slammed the northwestern Bahamas beginning on Sept. 1, 2019.
Hurricane Melissa made its second landfall before sunrise Wednesday morning in far southeastern Cuba. According to the National Hurricane Center, the Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph came ashore near the town of Chivirico around 3:10 a.m. EDT. Guantanamo Bay reported wind gusts up to 75 mph earlier on Oct. 29.
Check back with us at weather.com for the latest forecast updates on Melissa, and elsewhere in the tropics.
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.
Source: "AOL Breaking"
Source: Breaking
Published: October 30, 2025 at 11:54AM on Source: ALPHA MAG
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