Hurricane Melissa

A powerful Category 5 – Hurricane Melissa made landfall across western Jamaica on 28 October 2025. The hurricane brought strong winds (as high as 185 miles per hour), torrential rainfall and storm surge to the island, while inducing life threatening flooding, power outages, and damage to airports causing flight cancellations or delays. After the hurricane traversed over Jamaica, it re-entered into the Caribbean Sea, exhibiting a northeast storm track, and eventually impacted southeastern Cuba and the Bahamas within the next 48 hours. At peak intensity, the cyclone registered a central low pressure of 892 millibars, tied for the third strongest hurricane on record (by measure of pressure) in the Atlantic.

Nighttime visible imagery from the VIIRS Near-Constant Contrast (NCC) product captured the hurricane and its circular eye as it approached Jamaica during the early morning hours of 28 October 2025. Emitted lights produced from lightning (i.e., white pixels embedded within the clouds and convection) can be seen east of the eye, while emitted city lights over Jamaica are also observed in the imagery.

NOAA-20 VIIRS NCC at 0633Z, 28 October 2025

5-minute infrared data from GOES-19 observed the storm make landfall and then move across Jamaica. The hurricane’s eye initially stays intact before it eventually dissipates over the island’s higher terrain. Although not pictured here, the eye would re-form over the Caribbean Sea before the hurricane made landfall again, except this time over Cuba during the next day, 29 October 2025.

GOES-19 10.3 um IR from ~12Z, 28 October 2025 to ~22Z, 28 October 2025

Three overpasses from JPSS satellites (i.e., NOAA-20, NOAA-21 and SNPP) observed landfall of Hurricane Melissa while the eye subsides across Jamaica. The JPSS VIIRS infrared imagery exhibits a 375-m spatial resolution.

VIIRS I-5 Band (11.5 um) at 1748Z, 1838Z, and 1908Z, 28 October 2025

Along the southern side of Jamaica, VIIRS True Color RGB imagery depicts the new precipitation runoff and upwelling caused from the hurricane. Nighttime visible imagery also shows a before and after comparison of the power outages seen across the island. Refer the CIRA Twitter/X social media links below.