Melissa expected to rapidly intensify into a powerful hurricane with devastating Caribbean impacts

AccuWeather

AccuWeather meteorologists are expecting life-threatening flooding in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, leading to a potential humanitarian crisis in the days ahead.

Transcript

00:00Again, a slowly evolving storm just trudging, currently battling some wind shear.

00:05It's very lopsided.

00:06We centered this up over the center of circulation, so why does it look so disheveled?

00:10Well, it's got unfavorable winds that are creating shear, as you mentioned,

00:15through the middle part of the atmosphere, and that disrupts the circulation of the storm.

00:19So it looks, again, today is having a hard time getting its act together.

00:23It's a little bit more organized with where the thunderstorms are aligning.

00:27And that, though, is really not good news in the short term because when tropical storms are disorganized like this,

00:35the heavy rain bands can spread out quite a bit as opposed to being consolidated near the closer to the center of the storm.

00:42So that's why we're getting continued heavy rain across the Dominican Republic and Haiti,

00:46and that's only going to intensify from here,

00:48and that's the starting of our concerns about major flooding risks in those areas.

00:53That's unfortunately a good point there, John, about how these areas are very prone to the east

00:57or are holding on to extra rainfall for a longer time.

01:00Now, there's a short-term trend in which, you know, 24 hours ago it was actually 5 miles per hour stronger.

01:05So there are short-term trends, but what's the longer-term trend for this storm?

01:09The longer-term trend for the storm is we take a look at the exclusive AccuWeather iPath,

01:14which, of course, you can see here on the AccuWeather Network,

01:16also on AccuWeather.com on interactive maps and the free AccuWeather app.

01:21Notice that we're talking about intensification of this storm,

01:25but watch how close these points are together here over the next several days.

01:29That means the storm is only crawling through the Caribbean,

01:33and that's going to result in continued heavy rain over Hispaniola

01:38and eventually over toward Jamaica and Cuba,

01:40and that's one of the reasons we're so concerned about it.

01:42But watch as the storm ramps up in intensity, perhaps to a Category 4 storm

01:47on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale.

01:50So that's going to be a major hurricane later this weekend south of Jamaica

01:54and a big concern here for wind damage in Jamaica and eventually over to Cuba

01:59as you see those damaging winds of 100 and 120 mile-per-hour wind gusts near Kingston, Jamaica,

02:05and then spreading up to Cuba with another landfall there toward the middle of next week.

02:10So, yes, damaging wind is going to be a problem, but the biggest problem, Jeff,

02:14as we have been stressing for days here ahead of all sources,

02:18is the concern about life-threatening major flooding.

02:22I know we had an extensive, you led the charge there with the forecast team,

02:25an extensive forecast discussion today at 2.30 to about 3.15 or so,

02:30and there was a decision made to make a significant change regarding the AccuWeather local storm max.

02:34So what led to that?

02:35Well, we've upped the local AccuWeather local storm max to 50 inches of rain,

02:40which is the maximum conceivable value across the Caribbean.

02:44That's a very serious situation.

02:46We've been talking about the risks for heavy rain,

02:49repeated rounds of heavy rain for days in these areas,

02:51and especially across the southern part of the Dominican Republic,

02:55southern Haiti, generally south of the capital city of Port-au-Prince,

02:59and over toward much of Jamaica, we're expecting the risk for widespread 12 to 18 inches of rain.

03:07There will be higher amounts, and that's going to result in an extreme risk to lives and property there

03:12and also over toward Cuba as we head toward the middle of next week.

03:16We remain very concerned that this is going to result in a humanitarian crisis

03:22with many people in need of the basic supplies during and after the storm,

03:28including things like medical care, housing, shelter, food, water.

03:32That's a very serious situation there,

03:35and that's why we've rated the storm a 4 on AccuWeather's real impact scale for hurricanes

03:40because of the risk for catastrophic damage that could occur over a long period of time here.

03:46Some roads and bridges may be washed away by this flooding.

03:50Remember, we have lots of mountains in these Caribbean islands,

03:53and the runoff from heavy rain on those mountainous areas can present serious, major flash flooding.

04:02And, John, a lot of questions in the U.S. are how might this storm impact us?

04:07Will we see a landfall? Will we see any wind and rain from this in South Florida?

04:11Or will it stay out to sea?

04:13Well, it's going to be a big dip in the jet stream here across the eastern part of the country next week.

04:18Now, I want to point out everything we're talking about this is going to be the middle to end of next week.

04:24So we've got a long time to track this,

04:26and it looks like the direct impact risk across Florida remains relatively low.

04:34We think there's about a 20% chance for rain and wind impacts in South Florida.

04:38A more likely track will take the storm through the Bahamas,

04:43which would be far enough away that would preclude rain and wind impacts there.

04:47Now, beyond that time period, as the storm continues to move to the north,

04:52we have to watch this very closely.

04:54Because of this dip in the jet stream,

04:56there are some indications that the storm could be drawn closer to the northeast coast of the United States

05:02or up to Atlantic Canada.

05:04Again, that would be toward the end of the month.

05:06And that is an area I think that actually is probably a greater risk of that occurring

05:11than direct rain and wind impacts in South Florida the way we see it right now.

05:17So you want to stay tuned here at AccuWeather.

05:20It does not look like there's an imminent threat here to the United States,

05:23but something for us to watch.

05:25South Florida and the northeastern part of the United States,

05:28those two specific areas, into the middle and end of next week.

05:33AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist John Porter, thanks for breaking down the details, John.

05:37Thanks.

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