Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on October 28, 2025, as a Category 5 storm. It struck near New Hope on the islandās southwest coast, bringing extreme danger to the region.
The storm arrived with estimated sustained winds of 185 mph and a minimum central pressure of 892 millibars (mb). Those figures placed Melissa among the strongest hurricane landfalls ever recorded in the Atlantic basin.
By wind speed, Melissa tied storms such as Hurricane Dorian in 2019 and the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane. Its central pressure also matched that of the 1935 hurricane for the lowest recorded landfall pressure in the Atlantic.
Melissaās intensity demonstrated how quickly Atlantic hurricanes can become catastrophic before making landfall. For Jamaica, the storm brought the threat of destructive winds, torrential rainfall, and dangerous storm surge, leaving little time for residents to prepare.
