The United States is now about three months away from the start of the Atlantic hurricane season. This is the time of the year when the National Hurricane Center looks back at the tropical cyclone activity from the prior year and issues final reports for storms that formed during the previous season. The report on the 2025 season, issued this week, boosted the strength of last year's deadliest hurricane's strongest wind gust.
Hurricane Melissa's immense power was underscored by the extraordinary statistics it generated. It struck Jamaica as a Category 5 storm, packing sustained winds that were estimated near 185 mph, tying two other hurricanes for the strongest Atlantic landfall on record and made it the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in Jamaica. Not only that, but its wind speeds and pressure readings ranked Melissa among the most intense hurricanes ever observed in the Atlantic basin.
After further review, the NHC's final report on Melissa boosted the storm's peak sustained winds to 190 mph to tie Hurricane Allen as the strongest Atlantic hurricane on record based on wind speed. As remarkable as those sustained winds were, a gust recorded during the storm was even more jaw-dropping.
The NHC report also mentioned Melissa's wind gust of 252 mph, the highest wind speed ever recorded by a dropsonde, an expendable meteorological instrument dropped out of an aircraft that records vital information to aid forecast models in predicting a tropical cyclone's track and intensity.
"The blend of data (dropsondes, flight-level data, satellites, etc.) suggested that this was as strong a storm as you will ever see in the Atlantic basin, and unfortunately this happened right before landfall," University of Miami hurricane scientist Andrew Hazelton told USA Today. "Thankfully, the forecast was accurate and timely thanks to the hard work of forecasters, modelers, and other scientists who have helped us learn to better understand and predict rapid intensification."
Melissa killed at least 95 people late last October after undergoing rapid intensification. Four days before landfall, it was just a 40-knot tropical storm. At the time, the NHC forecast not only rapid intensification to a high-end Category 4 hurricane, but also a path near or over western Jamaica. Later forecasts gave nearly three days of lead time, indicating Melissa would strike as a powerful Category 5 storm. The report on Melissa noted it marked "the first time NHC had ever predicted a storm to reach Category 5 strength from that low of an initial intensity."
Our warming world is supercharging hurricanes. "Oceans made warmer by human-caused climate change are fueling more intense hurricanes in the Atlantic that bring heavier rainfall and higher storm surge when they make landfall," researchers with the nonprofit Climate Central said.
A rapid attribution study of Melissa issued by World Weather Attribution found that the hurricane's maximum wind speeds were increased by around 7%, while the storm's rainfall rate in the eye wall was about 16% more intense because of our overheating planet.
"Warmer ocean temperatures are effectively the engine that drives a hurricane. … The warmer the ocean temperatures, the greater the wind speed a hurricane can have," concluded Theodore Keeping, a member of the WWA team of scientists that analyzed Hurricane Melissa, per The Associated Press.
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