MELISSA OVER JAMAICA: A PERFECT, TERRIBLE MACHINE

Rich Washburn
Oct 28
5 min read

MELISSA OVER JAMAICA

0:00

I’ve always had a thing for weather.Not the polite kind—the afternoon sprinkle on your windshield or the thunder rolling off somewhere near the horizon.

No, I’m talking about the kind of weather that gets under your skin. The kind that hums with voltage. The kind that feels like the planet taking a deep breath before it decides what happens next.

Hurricanes have always been that for me. They’re chaos and order intertwined—fluid, elegant, and terrifying. I’ve stood through them here in Florida—Andrew, Wilma, Irma, Ian—watched palm trees bow like penitents and heard the sky itself scream. It’s awe and respect and fear, all wrapped in one sustained roar.

But tonight, that roar belongs to another island. My island. Jamaica. And what’s bearing down on it isn’t just a storm. It’s a piece of meteorological perfection, forged in heat and symmetry, the kind of thing that reminds even the most seasoned forecasters that nature has no governors, no boundaries—only potential.

A Perfect Engine in the Wrong Place

Let’s get technical for a second—because this isn’t just another storm spinning out of the tropics. This is Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 on paper but something else entirely in practice: a storm that’s broken through the upper limits of what we thought the Atlantic could produce this late in the season.

You’ve got sea-surface temperatures near 88°F, a vertical wind shear so low you could drive a drone through it, and a storm that’s been parked just long enough to supercharge itself. Every part of the atmosphere said “yes,” and Melissa took that as a personal challenge.

Latest recon data: 892 millibars at the core, 180–185 mph sustained winds, gusts well over 220 mph. That’s the kind of energy where physics stops being a theory and becomes a demonstration.

This isn’t hyperbole—it’s benchmark. We’ve seen this level of structure before in Typhoon Haiyan and the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane. But for it to happen here, over a populated island, this late in the season? You can count on one hand the times in recorded history.

Think of it like a figure skater pulling in her arms mid-spin. The closer she pulls in, the faster she turns. Now imagine she’s standing on an ocean heated to bathtub levels with nothing to stop her. That’s what we’re looking at.

The Science of Symmetry and Destruction

From orbit, the storm is perfect.A white, living disc. A cathedral of convection. The fabled “stadium effect” eye—walls of cloud so tall and clean they look carved by hand, curling into an open dome of pale blue in the center.

It’s mesmerizing. It’s math in motion. It’s beauty you wish you didn’t have to witness.Because below that symmetry, the island of Jamaica is bracing for wind that can peel paint off steel.

You don’t get “windows breaking” at this level—you get buildings failing. You get “not survivable” warnings from meteorologists who don’t use that phrase lightly. And you get the kind of rainfall—20 to 30 inches in the mountains—that turns rivers into avalanches.

From the air, it’s art.From the ground, it’s apocalypse.

The Human Geometry of Impact

The storm’s core is targeting the southwest coast—Black River, Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth—where the ocean rises and the land lies low.That’s where the 9–13 foot surge will stack against river mouths, turning coastal towns into bowls.

Inland, the Cockpit Country and Blue Mountains will funnel rainwater into valleys already flooded. Roads will disappear. Hillsides will slip. Power will go dark for days, maybe weeks.

Montego Bay, on the north side, will get the “blowback”—winds howling from the north as Melissa exits stage right. Kingston, for once, dodges the bullseye—but only just.

And as all this happens, 3 million Jamaicans—my people—are doing what humans do best: holding on.

Why This Matters (And Yeah, Maybe Even for the Weed Futures)

Here’s the thing.We talk about storms like this as “natural disasters,” but there’s nothing natural about the setup anymore. Warmer oceans are like steroid shots for these systems. Melissa isn’t a fluke—it’s a signpost. The atmosphere’s saying, I have new capabilities now.

So yes, this matters for climate, for infrastructure, for emergency planning—but also for the most Jamaican thing imaginable: agriculture. Because let’s be real—somewhere in Negril, a grower just watched a greenhouse full of “export product” become a flying carpet.

Marijuana futures? Let’s just say they’re as volatile as the barometric pressure right now.(Light up later. Board up now.)

Respect for the Sky

Here’s the paradox of weather people—we’re awestruck even when it’s awful.When you’ve got recon pilots looping inside an eye so smooth it looks engineered, you can’t help but marvel. You can’t help but think, this is what the atmosphere does when nothing’s in its way.

Melissa is that—unhindered potential.A perfect heat engine with a human cost.

So while I’m sitting here in Florida, raincoat on, hair whipped by the wrong storm for cinematic effect, my heart’s 700 miles south.Because Jamaica’s about to teach us—again—what weather looks like when it stops being a backdrop and becomes the main event.

What Happens Next

As the eye moves inland, it will weaken—terrain always wins a little. But even a “weakened” Category 4 can shred infrastructure, and as it pushes north toward Cuba and the Bahamas, the winds will still be hurricane-force.

This isn’t over after landfall.This will be days of cleanup, weeks of outages, months of rebuilding.

And for meteorologists, data scientists, and anyone who’s ever stared at a satellite loop in awe, this one’s going in the textbooks.Melissa will be the case study we cite the next time the Caribbean glows red on the sea-surface anomaly maps and someone asks, “Could a Cat-5 hit again?”

The answer, unfortunately, is yes.And it looks a lot like this.

Final Word: The Physics of Humility

Nature doesn’t care about your zip code, your Wi-Fi signal, or your storm shutters. It doesn’t negotiate. It just expresses energy in the purest way it knows how.

Melissa is that expression—a perfect, terrible equation balancing itself over an island that deserves better.

And as someone who’s been chasing storms all his life—half analyst, half adrenaline junkie—I’ll tell you this: you never really get used to it. You just learn to respect it.

So, to my family in Jamaica—stay safe, stay high ground, stay smart. To my fellow weather geeks—this is your masterclass.And to everyone watching—remember: sometimes, the planet reminds us who’s in charge.

—R.W.“The wind doesn’t care how fascinated you are—it only cares that you’re paying attention.”