Melissa is a hurricane for the record books, making landfall this afternoon at 1pm. It came ashore in New Hope, Jamaica with 185 mph winds and gusts up to 220 mph, making it one of the strongest hurricanes on record in the Atlantic Ocean both in terms of wind speed and pressure.
Pressure is the most common way to measure the strength of a storm — not just a hurricane, but any storm like nor’easters or a simple, weaker winter Alberta clipper. The lower the pressure, the stronger the storm. The stronger the storm, the stronger the wind speed. So with the wind speeds produced by Melissa, it’s no shock that the pressure is in rare company. It’s a little reverse thinking because a lower pressure (a lower number) will put the storm higher on the list. Melissa is tied for third place for strongest hurricane on record in the Atlantic — again, this is by the pressure benchmark.
Moving forward, Melissa is expected to weaken slowly as it continues to encounter land masses in the Caribbean. That also means we’re not done talking about Melissa yet. From here it’s expected to make another landfall tonight in Cuba as a category 4 storm, move through the Caribbean as a category 3 and finally head to Bermuda as a category 2 storm.
While Melissa will not impact New England directly, it will indirectly throw some heavy rain our way on Thursday evening and Thursday night. The area of low pressure that will be moving through, will actually pull some tropical moisture from Melissa and create tropical downpours here, Thursday evening and Thursday night.
Rain-wise that’s our best chance of rain moving forward. Tomorrow is a damp, drizzly, raw day. It’s far from a washout, but it’s not pleasant. We’ll have cool temperatures, a good little breeze along with drizzle or a spotty shower or two. While most of the rain is done Thursday night, a spot shower or two could be wrapped in on the backside of the storm on Friday — again, a very low chance.
The other thing to get used to for the rest of the week is the wind. A cold, raw breeze will be here tomorrow, but as we get closer to that Thursday storm, the wind will pick up even more. What’s initially a gusty wind within the storm itself, then it becomes a strong west to northwest wind on the backside of the storm as it exits Friday and Saturday. While the Halloween forecast looks promising for trick or treating (low spot shower chance), it may be a gamble to keep those inflatables up for Friday and Saturday.
