Melissa continues to rapidly intensify – from a tropical storm yesterday morning to a Category Four storm this morning:
Most of the time I’m the one talking down apocalyptic damage estimates from hurricanes, but his time, IF the NHC forecast is even in the ball park, I think it may be justified.
As part of the OAS Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project that developed the first comprehensive hurricane disaster maps for the region, Jamaica was our pilot project and research area, so I know the area well. Hurricane Melissa is just about the worst scenario you can imagine, potentially far worse than Gilbert in 1988. In today’s dollars, Gilbert caused about $7 billion in damage; Melissa will probably cause twice that, approaching 60% of Jamaica’s GDP. If this forecast holds up, and it seems on track as of this morning, the impacts will be apocalyptic, and as noted yesterday, the international response may be diminished.
Will do a longer post this afternoon as additional data comes in. But things look pretty grim at this point for Jamaica, Eastern Cuba (including USN GTMO), and there are already impacts in Haiti, which are likely to worsen over the next two days. Turks and Caicos/southern Bahamas should be on alert as they will see this storm later next week.
This is truly terrible. And rather late in the season. I am praying for “under perfoming.”
Thank you for the updates. Very helpful and thorough.