Matt Lanza

Melissa heads for the exit, as the recovery slowly begins in the Caribbean

In brief: Melissa has become post-tropical as it races toward Newfoundland, where it will deliver modest impacts tonight. The toll of devastation in Jamaica is just starting to come into focus. Details on that, and a link to yesterday’s Substack Live with Dr. Kristen Panthagani today.

Before we begin, I just want to offer up a link to a chat I had yesterday with Dr. Kristen Panthagani, of “You Can Know Things.” We talked about science communication, both in weather/climate and in public health and how similar our challenges are. We also talked about best practices in today’s new media environment and how it’s critical to get away from old school ways of doing business. Anyway, it’s an hour, but Kristen also has a wonderfully crafted AI summary of our discussion. AI is good for hurricane models and one hour conversation summaries!

Hurricane Melissa is now officially a post-tropical cyclone, meaning it’s still a very big storm but it just does not have tropical characteristics to call it a hurricane.

Melissa has lost most of its definition and is now considered a post-tropical storm. (Tropical Tidbits)

Anyway, Melissa swung by Bermuda earlier this morning. Wind gusts as high as 98 mph were reported at a somewhat elevated station on the island (meaning winds at ground level probably were not quite that strong).

Melissa will pass just southeast of the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland tonight. (Environment Canada)

From here, Melissa will race off to the northeast, passing by Newfoundland tonight after midnight local time. Melissa should only deliver moderate tropical storm force winds to Newfoundland, along with high surf and rough seas. Some locally heavy rain is possible in Newfoundland as Melissa passes by, though modeling suggests roughly 20 to 40 mm for the Avalon Peninsula. A somewhat broader low pressure system over northern New England and Quebec will produce somewhat higher precipitation totals, up to 50 mm or so, especially in the Adirondacks, Green Mountains, and Laurentians.

Total precipitation expected through Saturday night across New England and eastern Canada. (Tropical Tidbits)

Melissa exits stage right tomorrow, eventually settling just south of Iceland where it is absorbed into the semi-permanent Icelandic low.

Melissa’s recovery is just beginning still in the Caribbean. As expected, the death toll has risen, up to about 50 now, including 19 in Jamaica. We continue to get some pictures and accounts of the storm filtering out of Jamaica, and it was as bad as it seemed.

(dentona22 on Twitter/X)

What has been impressive to me are some of the before and after aerial views that show the physical devastation, yes, but also the natural devastation. These were relatively lush, green parts of Jamaica, and the natural landscape has been absolutely shredded, as is consistent with past storms of this intensity we’ve seen in other places. These storms have such immense power.

Here are a number of ways you can directly help out relief efforts, pulled in part from an Associated Press article on the topic.

United Way of Jamaica will donate directly to Jamaicans in the affected areas.

The American Friends of Jamaica is a fund that has been active for decades helping Jamaica.

Give Directly will provide cash relief directly to those impacted by the storm.

I also want to shout out the Center for Disaster Philanthropy which is focused on medium and long-term recovery. When the media and volunteers all leave, there will still be enormous amounts of work to do to recover from a storm of this magnitude. CDP works to help fill that gap.

Another interesting note today: Jamaica is a very forward-thinking country when it comes to disasters, and it will pay off for them in the wake of Melissa. A $150 million cat bond will probably be triggered as a result of the work they did in the years ahead of Melissa. While this will only cover a portion of the losses incurred from the storm, it can allow for a much faster restoration of basic services in the impacts areas in ways that they would otherwise not have been able. The cause of and solution to recovery in disasters remains multi-faceted and complex. But thinking ahead is a good play.

We will be taking the next day or two off and come back Monday to reset the weather situation. Hope everyone has a safe Halloween.

Hurricane Melissa moving toward Bermuda now as recovery begins in Jamaica and the Caribbean; how you can help

In brief: Hurricane Melissa is en route to Bermuda tonight with hurricane conditions expected before it begins to turn extratropical while passing just southeast of Newfoundland on Saturday morning. We have updates below on the damage in Jamaica and how you can help storm victims. Also, join me today at 1P ET/12P CT for a Substack Live with Dr. Kristen Panthagani.

Substack Live today

Before we get into things today, I wanted to share that I’m going to be joining my first Substack live today! Today at 1 PM ET/12 PM CT, I’m excited to talk about weather, climate, and health with Dr. Kristen Panthagani, the author of “You Can Know Things,” as well as a frequent contributor to Your Local Epidemiologist. Both of those are must-read blogs in my opinion. Kristen is passionate about science communication like me, and we both believe that there needs to be a lot of interdisciplinary cross-collaboration in the sciences to learn from one another.

Link to our Substack live is here.

With Hurricane Melissa dominating the news, I am sure we will have no shortage of things to discuss.

Latest on Melissa

Speaking of, Melissa is en route to Bermuda this morning.

Hurricane Melissa is exiting the southeast Bahamas and going to accelerate toward Bermuda today. (Cyclonicwx.com)

Melissa’s durability despite land interactions and moving into 30 to 60 kts. of wind shear is kind of impressive. This should eventually succumb to the shear to some extent. In the meantime, Melissa will likely hold serve today, potentially gaining a smidge more intensity before the shear just becomes overwhelming, cooler waters await, and the storm turns extratropical.

(NOAA/NHC)

As Melissa passes Bermuda tonight, hurricane conditions are likely. With the storm picking up speed, don’t expect the hurricane impacts to last too terribly long there though. Thankfully, a direct hit on Bermuda is unlikely. Melissa will continue northeast, passing the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland on Saturday morning as an extratropical hurricane-strength storm. On the current track, forecast impacts would be mostly minor to moderate in southeast Newfoundland and the Avalon Peninsula, with the worst of the storm remaining offshore. If for some reason the storm tracks closer to Atlantic Canada, impacts would worsen in Newfoundland. As of now, this looks like a manageable storm, albeit one with the usual hazards from gusty winds to heavy rain to rough seas and high tides in Newfoundland.

Meanwhile, in Jamaica, we’re starting to get a fuller picture of the damage. These aerial views below are from St. Elizabeth, which is very near where Melissa came ashore. The damage looks equivalent to a massive tornado.

Oddly, some of the structures actually held up remarkably well too. So there is something to be said about how Jamaica handles hurricanes, considering this was as close to the worst possible storm you could have anywhere. That said, this damage is pretty terrible, and the recovery from Melissa is going to be lengthy and difficult. Black River seems to have been hit especially hard. The death toll is around 32 in the Caribbean overall right now. I’m sure that number will rise, sadly. Remember, in the immediate aftermath of a storm like this, you are only seeing a fraction of what actually occurred.

How to help the Caribbean

Here are a number of ways you can directly help out relief efforts, pulled in part from an Associated Press article on the topic.

United Way of Jamaica will donate directly to Jamaicans in the affected areas.

The American Friends of Jamaica is a fund that has been active for decades helping Jamaica.

Give Directly will provide cash relief directly to those impacted by the storm.

I also want to shout out the Center for Disaster Philanthropy which is focused on medium and long-term recovery. When the media and volunteers all leave, there will still be enormous amounts of work to do to recover from a storm of this magnitude. CDP works to help fill that gap.

Newsy Bits

I want to end today on a more positive note. Here are a couple more interesting news stories I’ve bookmarked lately about animals and storms. Hurricanes are tremendously devastating events, but sometimes they can highlight the remarkable abilities and resiliency of nature.

Florida Flamingos: After Hurricane Idalia in 2023, it was discovered that a flock of about 300 to 400 flamingos likely migrating between the Yucatan and Cuba had been blown off course and ended up in Florida. Some decided to stay permanently. The result? Hope that flamingos are going to become more established in Florida again thanks to some luck and a lot of conservation efforts. This also is a great example of how birds can get trapped in the eye of a strong hurricane and be displaced hundreds or thousands of miles. It happens often. (The Conversation)

Fly like the wind: A young whimbrel that had a tracking device was clocked in at a flight speed of 80 mph for 24 hours as it flew from Cape Cod to Venezuela. The reason? It navigated a tailwind around Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda and got a serious boost. Interestingly, a whimbrel last summer got trapped inside the vortex of Hurricane Milton, unable to fly out of it and likely died of exhaustion. It’s a perilous journey south in migration season. (Weather Underground)

Melissa is now a top 5 storm all-time, and it is about to make landfall in Jamaica

In brief: Hurricane Melissa is one of the 4 strongest Atlantic storms on record, and it is making landfall in Jamaica as I type this. Horrific impacts are expected there, followed by significant impacts in Cuba later today and tomorrow. Our thoughts are with our Caribbean neighbors.

Very few places in the world have ever experienced in modern times what Jamaica is going through or about to go through this morning.

Massive hurricanes and typhoons do occasionally make landfall, but at this level of intensity it is rare. Melissa is essentially undergoing another round of rapid intensification as it approaches landfall in Jamaica. As of this writing, the barometric pressure was as low as 892 mb, tied for third strongest on record in the Atlantic with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, just behind Gilbert in 1988 and Wilma in 2005. It has maximum sustained winds of 185 mph. Notably, the maximum sustained winds only extend out about 10 miles from the center, so the worst damage will be concentrated within about 10 to 20 miles of the eyewall’s path. On an island that’s Jamaica’s size however, that’s a substantial swath of area.

Melissa’s appearance is more similar to that of a western Pacific typhoon. This merits another post down the line, but there are really only two areas where such storms could occur in the Atlantic: the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. These types of storms look like buzzsaws on satellites; their structure is meteorologically perfect.

Hurricanes Wilma and Gilbert above (Credit: University of Wisconsin CIMSS & NOAA) and Hurricane Melissa below (Credit: cyclonicwx.com)

Even when comparing this to Gilbert and Wilma, the two strongest satellite era companions to Melissa, it does appear that Melissa may have the most pristine structure. Satellite resolution has improved dramatically since 1988 and 2005, but even in those cases, it would seem that Melissa has the more meteorologically perfect look. Wilma did have that pinhole eye, of course, which can also be reminiscent of a Pacific typhoon. Whatever the case, all we can do is hope and pray right now that Jamaicans are as safe as possible. While that is a hurricane battle tested location, there is no place in the world, even America, that is truly adequately prepared to handle a top 5 storm on record.

(NOAA/NHC)

From here, the next stop is Cuba, and we continue to see strong support for a landfall just to the west of Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city in the country. Jamaica will take a big bite out of Melissa for sure, though the center should pass just west of the highest terrain and over a relatively narrower part of the island. I would anticipate that a category 3 or 4 storm is likely to hit Cuba tomorrow morning. As previously noted, this looks worse than Sandy and potentially the worst on record in eastern Cuba. The worst winds should pass to the west of Guantanamo Bay. But heavy rain and significant flooding are likely with over 20 inches more rainfall possible there.

Additional rains expected through tomorrow and early Thursday. (NOAA WPC)

Once across Cuba, Melissa will weaken a little more, entering the southeast Bahamas likely as a category 2 storm. The center of the storm and worst wind will likely pass near Long Island and Crooked Island, while impacts will be felt over a wider area, including for portions of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Thereafter, Melissa accelerates off to the northeast and starts to slowly turn extratropical in nature. This should allow Melissa to sustain as a hurricane all the way to Bermuda, where it will make a close pass on Thursday night and Friday morning. Bermuda will find itself likely on the east side of the storm, so significant rain and wind are likely there, but the impacts will be more muted in nature than in the Caribbean islands or even the Bahamas.

Melissa is a historic storm, and it’s almost guaranteed to have its name retired in the offseason, adding to a litany of “M” storms in the Caribbean that have inflicted so much pain and suffering, like Mitch and Maria. Our thoughts are with the affected areas, and we will provide some links on how to send financial help to those areas once the storm passes.

Hurricane Melissa enters the elite club of the 20 most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in the satellite era

In brief: Melissa is a remarkable storm in many aspects, from its slow motion to its intensity. But with severe direct human impacts expected in Jamaica by tomorrow morning, it’s tough to find any enthusiasm in the fascinating meteorological story unfolding with Melissa. We discuss the latest track and outlook for the storm.

Over the last 8 years or so, I feel like we’ve seen a number of weather events that make you pause and say, “Yeah, that really is awful.” Of course, bad storms have always happened. Extraordinary weather has always happened. There are countless weather events throughout history where you stop and say, “If that happened today it would be calamitous.” But it just seems like the frequency of these events, these mouth-agape events has just ramped up in recent years. Many of them are hurricanes, yes, but it does run the gamut from winter storms to extreme heat to floods to everything in between. Nature’s violence never ceases to amaze and terrify. And here we are again in the same situation.

Melissa became a category 5 storm this morning and then proceeded to join a club of elite storms, the 17 strongest on record, according to Dr. Kim Wood of the University of Arizona. The last storm to reach the 150 kt. maximum sustained wind threshold was Milton last year. Other notable names to do this include Maria, Mitch, Gilbert, Andrew, Katrina, Rita, Wilma, and Camille. It’s a literal unanimous first ballot hall of fame of storms.

An absolutely monster. (Cyclonicwx.com)

Maximum sustained winds remain at 175 mph this evening. There’s been some question if they’ve actually been stronger at times today, but it doesn’t really matter ultimately. It’s a question of semantics. The end result is all but written at this point with respect to Jamaica: It’s going to be a horribly bad storm for many places there. Many folks will be agonizing over each wobble on satellite this evening, but with a storm this powerful, it will find its way north and eventually into Jamaica, probably on the western half of the island. And besides that, the 15 to 30 inches of rain that most of the island will receive is bad enough alone.

(NOAA/NHC)

The question now is just how bad it will be on Jamaica. It’s also a question of how bad it will be in eastern Cuba. Melissa will definitely have lower intensity after crossing Jamaica. In the unlikely event that it somehow skirts and misses the island to the west, it could very well be an extremely powerful storm in Cuba. Interests there should be preparing for a bad storm regardless, easily the worst since Sandy in that part of Cuba. But there is a line between awfully bad and awful, and that’s what is riding on Melissa’s track tonight for Cuba.

The storm should be a lesser hurricane once it emerges off Cuba into the Bahamas, however several intensity models continue to show perhaps a small bump once in or just clear of the Bahamas. Basically, expect a significant storm in the southeast Bahamas, with perhaps a bump in intensity once past there. For Bermuda, it will be a close call with most models placing Melissa near or just west of Bermuda as it passes. Either way, the impact of a hurricane seems increasingly likely as Melissa’s wind field inevitably expands as it lifts northeast. More to come on those aspects of the storm.

Whatever the case, Melissa will enter a fragile period tonight where the atmosphere suggests additional intensification is possible, while the storm is pushing the limits of how long a hurricane can go without an eyewall replacement cycle disrupting it somewhat. While the outcome for Jamaica seems unlikely to change, the meteorological element and history books may change a bit depending on what Melissa gets up to tonight. All we can do now is watch and hope for the best.