The storm arrived with estimated sustained winds of 185 mph and a minimum central pressure of 892 mb. Those numbers place Melissa among the strongest hurricane landfalls ever recorded in the Atlantic basin.
By wind speed, Melissa tied with storms such as Hurricane Dorian in 2019 and the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane. Its pressure also matched the 1935 hurricane for the lowest recorded landfall pressure in the Atlantic.
Melissa’s intensity showed how quickly Atlantic hurricanes can become catastrophic before landfall. For Jamaica, the storm brought the threat of destructive winds, heavy rain, and dangerous storm surge with very little time to prepare.
