Hurricane Melissa has made Landfall onto Jamaica with confirmed winds at 185 MPH!
Melissa has made landfall near New Hope on Jamaica’s southwestern coast as a Category 5 storm, bringing violent winds and significant risks for flash flooding from rain and storm surge as its pushes across the island throughout Tuesday.
The hurricane had wind speeds of 185 m.p.h. when it made landfall at noon local time. But it is the storm’s creeping pace that raises fears among forecasters and government officials; that saturating rains could set off flash flooding in narrow river valleys and cause deadly landslides in Jamaica’s steep, mountainous topography.
One of the worst natural disasters in history has just begun in Jamaica. Over the next twelve hours or so, the world will get to see just how bad things are.
The landfall point is shown on the scalable map below:
