\n<\/p>\n
October 23, 2025<\/p>\n
3 min read<\/p>\n
Near-Hurricane Melissa Will Drop Mind-Boggling Rain on Jamaica<\/p>\n
Melissa is currently a slow-moving tropical storm that is expected to rapidly intensify to a major hurricane\u2014a brutal combination will drench Jamaica and other Caribbean islands<\/p>\n
By Meghan Bartels edited by Andrea Thompson<\/span><\/p>\n Tropical Storm Melissa swirling slowly over the Caribbean Sea on October 23, 2025.<\/p>\n Tropical Storm Melissa is poised to devastate Jamaica and parts of Haiti this weekend as the slow-moving storm rapidly explodes into a major hurricane and dumps huge amounts of rain on the Caribbean islands. Some areas could see as much as 20 inches of rainfall in just a few days. With that depth, an Olympic swimming pool\u2019s worth of water would cover scarcely less than the area of a football field.<\/p>\n Winds are the threat that is most associated with hurricanes, followed by storm surge. But rain is an often overlooked peril of such storms\u2014and can be the most dangerous one. That was the case with 2017\u2019s Hurricane Harvey\u2014which established the record for rainfall in a single storm in the continental U.S. when it dropped more than 48 inches of rain near Houston\u2014and with last year\u2019s Hurricane Helene\u2014which dropped as much as two feet of rain in Appalachia just days after previous rainfall of approximately one foot in the region.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Hurricane Science Has a Lot of Jargon\u2014Here\u2019s What It All Means<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n As of the afternoon of October 23, Melissa is a tropical storm with a peak sustained wind speed of 45 miles per hour, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s National Hurricane Center, which is operating despite the now three-week-long, continuing shutdown of the federal government. The storm is expected to become a hurricane within 48 hours and to intensify to a major Category 3 hurricane by Sunday\u2014after which it will perhaps top out as a Category 4 hurricane by Monday. (Forecasters are still watching to see whether Melissa might threaten the continental U.S. next week.)<\/p>\n But even as the winds within Melissa are forecast to become powerful gusts, the atmosphere around the storm is calm, leaving the would-be hurricane meandering through the Caribbean. Melissa\u2019s eye is currently moving at a speed of just two miles per hour. \u201cYou or I could walk faster than it\u2019s moving,\u201d says Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami. All of the threats of a serious hurricane are exacerbated when a storm moves slowly because any given place is exposed to hurricane conditions for more time. \u201cGetting hit by a hurricane is never good,\u201d McNoldy says. \u201cBut getting hit by a hurricane that\u2019s not moving is so much worse.\u201d<\/p>\n As Melissa crawls by, it will dump huge amounts of rain on the islands in its path. The National Hurricane Center\u2019s rainfall forecasts currently see western Jamaica getting nearly a foot of rain within the next three days, with some locations surpassing that. But the storm\u2019s timeline is currently longer than the forecast\u2019s; former NOAA meteorologist Alan Gerard expects some parts of the Caribbean to see at least 20 inches of rain from Melissa.<\/p>\n More intense rainfall events from storms of all kinds are becoming more likely as warming temperatures prime the atmosphere to hold more water vapor. \u201cThat is the fingerprint that climate change has on storms\u2014in general, more moisture, more rain,\u201d McNoldy says.<\/p>\n He worries that Melissa\u2019s devastation in the Caribbean will be worsened by the mountainous terrain of islands such as Jamaica and Hispaniola, which is divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Such a landscape is particularly vulnerable to flash floods and landslides because water rushes to the lowest elevation it can find\u2014consider the terrible flooding Hurricane Helene brought to Appalachia last autumn. In addition, mountainous landscapes can worsen rainfall itself because when an air mass hits a mountainside, it is forced upward, which causes it to drop more of the water inside of it, McNoldy says.<\/p>\n The combination could be a recipe for dire flash flooding, which is particularly dangerous in steep terrain that funnels huge amounts of water into small areas. \u201cOnce you\u2019re over even half a foot of rain, it\u2019s a ridiculous amount of rain,\u201d McNoldy says. \u201cWhen you\u2019re getting into 12-plus inches of rain, it\u2019s just too much for anywhere to handle, no matter how good your infrastructure is.\u201d<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" October 23, 2025 3 min read Near-Hurricane Melissa Will Drop Mind-Boggling Rain on Jamaica Melissa is currently a slow-moving tropical storm that is expected to rapidly intensify to a major hurricane\u2014a brutal combination will drench Jamaica and other Caribbean islands By Meghan Bartels edited by Andrea Thompson Tropical Storm Melissa swirling slowly over the Caribbean<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[4136,5275,769,8966,15031,4707],"class_list":{"0":"post-30164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-drop","9":"tag-feet","10":"tag-hurricane","11":"tag-jamaica","12":"tag-melissa","13":"tag-rain"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
It\u2019s Time to Stand Up for Science<\/h2>\n