Transcription
Hurricane Melissa is taking a turn for the worst as it approaches Jamaica. And we are anticipating that this is going to cause catastrophic impacts as a category 5 hurricane over the next 24 to 48 hours. So, in today's forecast, we're going to break down exactly what you need to know about Hurricane Melissa and why this hurricane is doing something we have never seen before.
We're going to begin with what's happening with Hurricane Melissa right now. And this thing has gone crazy over the last 24 hours. This was only a tropical storm yesterday morning and this morning it is borderline category 5 as it approaches Jamaica. You can see how the eye has cleared out. This is just unbelievable how fast this thing has rapidly intensified over the last 24 hours. And unfortunately the northern side of Melissa is now reaching southern Jamaica. So some of that heavy rainfall is starting to move in. And over the next 24 hours, we're going to continue to see this northwesterly flow with heavy rainbands moving into eastern Jamaica and parts of eastern Jamaica could pick up between 30 to 50 inches of rainfall over the next few days. This is going to be one of the worst, if not the worst hurricane to ever hit Jamaica over the last 100 years.
Now, Hurricane Melissa is taking a turn for the worst. It is going to make direct landfall in Jamaica as we go into late Monday and early Tuesday as a powerful category 4 or 5 hurricane. I would honestly anticipate that this is going to be borderline cat 5 upon landfall in Jamaica, which would make it the worst hurricane in terms of intensity to ever make landfall in Jamaica. On top of that, in my opinion, this will probably be the worst hurricane we've ever seen in Jamaica.
Right now, we do have hurricane warnings in effect for all of Jamaica. Tropical storm warnings are in effect for Haiti. And then we also have hurricane watches in effect for both Haiti and as well as eastern Cuba. But this is the real story. This hurricane is barely going to move over the next couple of days. In fact, it is basically going to be stationary. As of right now, this hurricane is moving west at about 1 to 2 mph. That is extremely slow. It's basically stationary. And as we go into tomorrow night, that is when it's going to start to finally turn off to the north, which means it's going to make direct landfall in Jamaica sometime late Monday into early Tuesday. And it's really not going to speed up until we go into late Tuesday. So, we're going to have several days of catastrophic rainfall falling in Jamaica, which is going to lead to tons of landslides, and it is going to lead to most likely a very fatal hurricane. And I hate to say it, but unfortunately, we've already had five fatalities out of Hurricane Melissa, and that's in Haiti, and also one in the Dominican Republic. We are likely going to see a lot more because of how impactful this hurricane's going to be. The infrastructure is just not good enough, especially since we have so many homes near mountains. And that's where all that rain's going to come right down and it's just going to cause all sorts of landslides. And on top of that, the coastal regions are going to get slammed with storm surge and upwards of 30 to 50 inches of rain, which is just absurd. So unfortunately, this is a really bad scenario. If you are right along the coastline, you need to try to evacuate inland because if you are along the coastline, you are probably going to get hit by really significant storm surge.
And before we go further into the forecast, I do want to read this off. This is directly from the National Hurricane Center and they explicitly said this very chilly message. It says, "Jamaica, seek shelter now. A multi-day period of damaging winds and heavy rainfall has already begun and will cause catastrophic and life-threatening flash flooding and numerous landslides. Extensive infrastructural damage, long duration power outages and communication outages. Additionally, isolation of communities are all expected." So everything I just said is expected out of this hurricane. Life-threatening storm surge is likely along with portions of the southern coast into early next week. So again, if you can, please try to get inland. Really, the western half of Jamaica is probably going to be the safest place to be, even that safe, but it will be safer because we do think what's going to happen is that Melissa is going to make landfall somewhere either in central or eastern Jamaica, which were or where the worst of the impacts are going to be felt. Though very far western part of Jamaica may luck out on some of the most significant impacts. But basically, no matter where you are in Jamaica, you are going to feel Melissa.
Now, I did say that we've never seen a hurricane like this before. And there is a reason why in Jamaica or even within a certain radius here of Jamaica. We've only ever had four hurricanes at at least category 4 intensity. Three of them passed to the south of Jamaica. And then obviously back in 1988, we had Hurricane Gilbert, which did make landfall near Kingston, Jamaica as a powerful category 4 hurricane. It was a low-end category 4 hurricane at landfall. What makes this hurricane different is that one, it's going to come out of the south. We've not really had a hurricane like that before. Secondly, this could be a borderline category 5 hurricane or it might even make landfall as a category 5 hurricane on Monday into early Tuesday. If that happens, that is something that we've never had happen in Jamaica before. On top of that, we've never had a hurricane in Jamaica like this dump as much as 30 to 50 inches of rainfall. And so, this is just something that we've really never seen before. So, again, if you are in Jamaica, please take this seriously.
Now, let's talk more about the timing and the impacts of Hurricane Melissa. Beginning with what is happening on the future radar. This is what it looks like right now. We got a very strong hurricane just to the south of Jamaica. It's approximately 125 miles to the south of Kingston, Jamaica. As we go into later today, this is going to continue to rapidly intensify and should reach its peak intensity sometime this evening far to the south of Jamaica. As we go into the overnight hours, this hurricane will continue to kind of fluctuate in intensity. It'll probably be a category 5 hurricane most of the overnight hours. And then by tomorrow morning, this thing continues to stay pretty much stationary south of Jamaica. Look at all these outer rainbands. They are all going to be moving into eastern and central Jamaica, which is going to dump tons of rainfall, most likely upwards of at least a foot of rain between now all the way through Monday at lunchtime. As we go into later Monday, so right around 4, 5:00, it will start to move to the north and that is when we're going to start to see the winds really intensify. And on top of that, we're going to see the rainfall pick up a lot more in Jamaica. By Monday evening, this hurricane is going to be making its way towards southern Jamaica. Notice how it's going to be coming in from around Portland Cottage just to the southwest of Kingston, Jamaica. And that is where we're expecting our initial landfall. It's going to likely be somewhere in central or eastern Jamaica. Look how high the winds are going to be. These very tight isobars. That is where the highest winds are going to be. So that's around Kingston all the way back over here towards western Jamaica. That is where our highest winds will be located. Most likely around 100 to 150 mph. We could have wind gusts as high as 200 mph when the immediate landfall happens. And then as we go into Tuesday morning when the sun is rising, that is when it's going to be right over land dumping tons of rain and producing the most catastrophic winds that this hurricane will produce. Storm surge is going to be substantial in eastern Jamaica all around here around and east of Kingston. That is where we're expecting major and catastrophic storm surge. If you're on the west side of the hurricane, that is where we're not expecting as significant of storm surge. But you should be prepared for this hurricane cuz once this lifts to the north, we're going to start to see the storm surge really rip across the northern sections of Jamaica, which is obviously very concerning. And as we go into Tuesday afternoon, this hurricane will finally move out of Jamaica. By Tuesday afternoon and evening, that's when all the cleanup is going to be happening, unfortunately. And then as we go into Tuesday evening, it's going to be moving right through eastern Cuba with another direct landfall as most likely a category 3 or even a low-end category 4 hurricane. And then early Wednesday morning, Melissa will move right through the eastern Bahamas and then eventually it is out to sea as we go into Thursday.
Now, in all honesty, I am the most concerned about the catastrophic flooding event that is going to come out of Hurricane Melissa. This is the 4-day rainfall outlook here across Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. And notice that there are some areas that are outlined to see over 30 to even 40 inches of rainfall. And that is primarily going to be back over near Kingston, Jamaica, and really along the immediate east coast. Notice how there's a sharp drop off the further west you go. And that is mainly because the hurricane itself is going to have a lot more rain on the east side of the hurricane. And on top of that, we are also going to have the mountainous regions at play. So right in central Jamaica, we have big mountains obviously. And so that area is going to kind of prevent, I think, a lot of the rain from being on the western half of Jamaica. Additionally, with where it's stalling and where it's going to be making landfall are key because where it's stalling, a lot more of the rainbands are going to make it up to that mountainous region and then kind of just evaporate as it moves to the west. So, that mountain's kind of helpful for western Jamaica. Obviously, if the track shifts at all, it could very well change. We have a more western landfall. Things are going to change substantially with the forecast. But, for right now, we think the worst of the impacts will be in eastern Jamaica. There will also be a large area of over 20 to 30 inches of rainfall, which is over 500 millimeters of rainfall in western Haiti and a large chunk there of eastern Jamaica. We also have a lot of areas outlined with 15 to 20 inches of rain at play, which does include Jamaica, Haiti, and as well as the Dominican Republic. And then also upwards of 10 to 20 inches of rain is still in play in the red, which goes anywhere from eastern Cuba all the way back over into the Dominican Republic. Honestly, these are extreme numbers, which obviously with the the case that we have here with a very slow-moving hurricane, this is obviously very concerning. We are going to have tons of landslides, tons of mudslides. It's going to be a disaster over the next few days, especially in western Haiti and Jamaica when it comes to extreme rainfall. If you are in any of these regions, definitely make sure that you have your flash flood plan ready to go and get to higher ground whenever flash flooding really gets bad.
Another thing I do want to point out about Melissa is once it gets past Cuba, the Bahamas, and Jamaica, there's actually a possibility by the time we go into the late weeks around Thursday or Friday, so right around Halloween, this could actually take a track to the northeast right into Bermuda. So, we actually could see this hurricane continue all the way through Thursday going into Bermuda and then by Friday and Saturday, we do expect it to go out to sea or at least towards the very far northern Atlantic Ocean. So, generally speaking, this is going to be a very impactful hurricane. This is impacting well over five different countries over the next few days, including again the greater Antilles and the Bahamas and then it could even impact Bermuda. So we could have as many as six countries impacted by this hurricane directly.
Now switching gears to the United States, we have a crazy weather pattern coming, but I do want to mention we do have a risk of severe weather today, mainly along the Gulf Coast. There's a low-end chance for an isolated tornado, but damaging winds the primary concern from New Orleans all the way back towards Panama City, Florida. So stay weather aware and have ways to receive warnings. The 2% tornado risk is really just confined to the Gulf Coast. So definitely make sure you have ways to receive warnings.
So here's the timing of severe weather today. A broken line of thunderstorms will continue across Mississippi and Louisiana through the late morning. Early this afternoon, still going to be dealing with basically the same thing. I think if we have any legit tornado threat today, it'll probably happen between about 4 and 8:00 PM mainly over here in far southern Alabama and the panhandle of Florida. So basically from Mobile, Alabama back through Panama City. There will be a couple of supercells that will try to form offshore and move inland. And if any of those can organize, I do think there will be a potential for an isolated tornado or two. And I do expect that this threat will continue into the overnight hours. This pictured here is right around 4 to 5:00 AM. We could still have a rogue supercell ongoing in the Florida panhandle through about 5:00 AM. And then I think as we get closer to sunrise, things are going to start to chill out across Florida, but we may see a little bit of isolated storm activity continue into late Monday morning along the west coast of Florida. And then through the afternoon, we'll have some scattered showers and thunderstorms all across central Florida.
And if you like fall weather, I have some amazing news for you because as we go into the middle of this week, we're going to have a low pressure system drop all the way into the southeast. And this is going to be pretty intense. Not in the way of severe weather, but instead this is going to bring a big shot of cold air as we go into Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And this is mainly because of the hurricane. It's actually going to pull this low pressure system and a ton of cold air from the Canada region all the way down into the southeast. And we're going to have one of the coldest Halloweens that we've had in quite some time across much of the southern plains and the southeast. And so these are what the temperature anomalies look like over the next few days. We are going to have a big shot of cold air as we go into Wednesday across the southern plains. Low temperatures will be in the 30s and 40s in some areas, which is shocking for this time of the year. And then by Thursday into Friday, the southeast, we are talking about some of the coldest weather that we've ever seen for this time of the year in some spots. These are what the low temperatures look like for Wednesday morning. We'll have 30s down in the Texas panhandle, 40s and 50s down into parts of Florida and along the Gulf Coast. Even the possibility for upper 30s into areas like Atlanta, Georgia. Thursday is going to be even colder. Some areas near DFW could be as low as the upper 30s, including Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. This is going to be pretty crazy stuff, guys. If you have any plans around the end of this upcoming week, it is going to be pretty chilly. You might have to bring your jacket out a little bit earlier than last year.
And as always, thank you all so much for watching today's forecast. If you are new to the channel, make sure to subscribe down below. There is a possibility we have a live update on Hurricane Melissa either tonight or even tomorrow. So, click the bell icon so you're notified if we do go live. And then also make sure that you're subscribed to the channel. We may have another video today or tomorrow talking all about this. So stay tuned and we'll see you all again in the next.