Weather tracker: Jamaica braces for its most powerful hurricane as Melissa nears category 5 | Jamaica

The Caribbean is preparing for Hurricane Melissa, one of the strongest hurricanes to hit the region. Melissa began as a group of thunderstorms off the coast of West Africa, moved westward and weakened into a depression, reaching tropical storm status north of Venezuela on October 21. Rapid intensification over the weekend upgraded Melissa to a category 4 category as it slowly moved westward across the Caribbean Sea.

Melissa is expected to reach category 5 intensity Monday night, veer northeast toward Jamaica, and make landfall around noon tomorrow; winds will gust to 160 miles (257 km) per hour, making it the strongest of the five hurricanes ever recorded to directly hit Jamaica. The most recent, and the strongest ever, was Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, which brought winds of 130 mph.

Melissa’s particularly slow passage (averaging 5 mph in recent days) will exacerbate the impact with extremely high precipitation along the way. A total of 200-400 mm is expected in Jamaica on Tuesday evening, rising to 1,000 mm in places.

Similar amounts are expected in southeastern Cuba from late Tuesday through Wednesday. By comparison, London and Paris receive around 650 mm per year, while Kingston in Jamaica averages just over 800 mm.

The US National Hurricane Center warned of “extensive infrastructure damage, prolonged power and communications outages, and isolation of communities” in Jamaica and nearby islands, with the potential for life-threatening flash flooding, storm surges and landslides.

Meanwhile, two powerful storms hit New Zealand last week. The first on Monday and Tuesday was quickly followed by an even stronger storm on Thursday. The latter led to rare red wind advisories when winds exceed 90 mph in many densely populated areas.

Damage included roofs torn off buildings and downed power poles; Nearly 90,000 homes were without power on Thursday. Many schools, workplaces and public buildings were closed as a precaution. Numerous road and rail links were also closed, some due to flooding or landslides, while ferry services and hundreds of flights were disrupted or cancelled.

The wind was strong enough to overturn a truck traveling near Springfield and overturn shipping containers in the port of Dunedin. There was also extensive damage to trees; A man is known to have died after being struck by a falling branch while walking in a park in Wellington on Tuesday.