The early hours of this Sunday marked a turning point for the tropical system Melissa. In just a few hours, it transformed into a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, following a rapid intensification process that raised its maximum sustained winds to 220 km/h and its central pressure to 953 hPa.
While it remains over the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, south of Jamaica, its slow movement, approximately 6 km/h to the west, allows the atmosphere-ocean system to favor its strengthening. Tracking models already place it within a projected path cone that includes eastern Cuba.
According to Cuban meteorologist Ailín Justiz in the midday report broadcast by Canal Caribe, “this system continues to pose a danger to eastern Cuba” and emphasized that “we practically have it within the path cone; it is becoming narrower.”
It also warned that "these systems are not isolated: we must consider the rain, hurricane-force winds, and also the effects on the sea," which underscores the scale of the risk that Melissa represents.
The Forecast Center of the Institute of Meteorology (INSMET) emphasized that the national surveillance protocol for tropical cyclones has been activated for days. Justiz explained: “when months like October arrive … monitoring is not limited to the Atlantic, but extends to the Caribbean Sea, where the presence of these systems becomes more frequent.”
He added that “these dynamic phenomena change over different time frames, even sometimes in the short term, the systems show a variation and that... causes the entire dynamic to also be modified.”
In its more technical aspect, it is reported that Melissa feeds on a warm layer of the ocean that exceeds 30 °C and that "this very hot deep layer" provides a significant amount of energy.
Thanks to this, the hurricane has been able to organize itself better, with outer bands already affecting areas such as Haiti, Dominican Republic, and the seas south of Cuba, where rain and instability caused by the system's circulation are reported.
The forecast indicates that until Tuesday, the storm will slowly move west-northwest, expected to be near or over the southern coast of Jamaica, and from that point on, it could turn north and then northeast.
The eastern region of Cuba, particularly the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, and Guantánamo, should be on high alert due to the increase in storm surges and heavy rains that have already begun to be recorded in the southern area.
The recommendation from INSMET, supported by expert Justiz, is clear: maintain continuous attention to the official reports, prepare in advance for potential effects of wind, rain, and swells, and do not wait until the last moment for preventive action.
The slower it moves, the more time the phenomenon will have to gain intensity, and that can make all the difference.
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