Hurricane Melissa — already weighing in at Category 4 — may strengthen to Category 5 by Sunday night and inundate parts of the northern Caribbean early this week with 30 or more inches of rain, forecasters said Sunday.
Torrential rain and potential catastrophic flooding were in the near future for Jamaica, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, with Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and other countries in Melissa’s path. Jamaica’s southern tip was first in its sights, where the monster storm was expected to make landfall Monday night or Tuesday morning as a major hurricane.
“Conditions are going to go down rapidly today,” NHC Deputy Director Jamie Rhome said of Jamaica on Sunday. “Be ready to ride this out for several days.”
Even as a tropical storm, the system had already claimed at least three lives in Haiti and another in the Dominican Republic, with another person still missing there as of Sunday. Jamaican officials began closing airports Saturday night into Sunday, activated more than 650 shelters, and stocked warehouses islandwide with thousands of easily distributable food packages and other supplies.
AP Photo/Matias Delacroix
People buy groceries ahead of the forecast arrival of Hurricane Melissa in Kingston, Jamaica, on Sunday. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
As of 2 p.m. Sunday, Melissa was centered about 110 miles south of Kingston, Jamaica, and about 285 miles south-southwest of Guantanamo, Cuba, packing maximum sustained winds of 140 mph, the NHC said. Hurricane-force winds extended 25 miles out from the eye, and tropical storm-force winds extended in a 175-mile radius, with the storm expected to intensify over the next day or so, then fluctuate. It was moving west at 5 mph, a sluggish pace that portended prolonged inundation, experts said.
“It’s going to sit there, pouring water while it’s barely moving, and that is a significant challenge that we have to be aware of,” said Evan Thompson, principal director of the Meteorological Service of Jamaica, noting it would likely hamper rescue and recovery efforts.
“Seek shelter now,” the NHC told Jamaicans Sunday in an 11 a.m. public advisory. “Damaging winds and heavy rainfall today and Monday will cause catastrophic and life-threatening flash flooding and numerous landslides before potentially devastating winds arrive Monday night and Tuesday morning.”
NOAA via Getty Images
Hurricane Melissa strengthens into a Category 4 storm as it churns northwest through the Caribbean Sea on Sunday. Melissa could further develop into a Category 5 as it approaches Jamaica, according to the National Hurricane Center. (Photo by NOAA via Getty Images)
Melissa would continue west after that, across southeastern Cuba Tuesday night and the southeastern Bahamas on Wednesday, the NHC said. Those areas, along with Turks and Caicos were under hurricane watch amid an increasing risk of “significant storm surge, damaging winds and heavy rainfall” Tuesday into Wednesday.
Haiti and the Dominican Republic were told to brace for heavy rainfall with “catastrophic and life-threatening flash flooding and landslides” through midweek, with infrastructure damage almost guaranteed to isolate communities, the NHC said.
“There is nowhere that will escape the wrath of this hurricane,” said Richard Thompson, Jamaica’s acting director general of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management.
With News Wire Services
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