People in Jamaica are braced for the impact of Hurricane Melissa, which is forecast to unleash destructive winds and bring catastrophic flooding to the Caribbean nation today. Via the BBC:
Melissa was upgraded to a category five hurricane – the maximum strength – early on Monday, the US-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The authorities fear that Melissa, which has already been blamed for the deaths of four people on the island of Hispaniola, could become the strongest hurricane ever to hit Jamaica.
The Jamaican government has ordered evacuations for parts of the capital, Kingston, and the entire island has been classed as “threatened”.
An update from the NHC at 09:00GMT said that Melissa was about 130 miles (209km) south-southwest of Kingston, Jamaica.
A graphic shows the predicted path of Hurricane Melissa, forecast to make landfall in Jamaica at 20:00EDT on Tuesday, to then go over Cuba, and the Bahamas at 20:00EDT on Wednesday.
It has maximum sustained wind speeds of 160mph (260km/h) and could strengthen further in the next 12 to 24 hours, forecasters warned.
If it continues on the forecasted track, its core is expected “to move near or over Jamaica tonight and Tuesday, across south-eastern Cuba Tuesday night, and across the south-eastern Bahamas on Wednesday”.
The storm is particularly slow moving, which makes it very dangerous in terms of expected rainfall amounts.
