00:00Joining us right now, though, is AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist John Porter, who has been covering the storm throughout last week.
00:06I mean, we've been talking about this for weeks, unfortunately, and we also have been talking about how the Caribbean was just going to be a fuel source for any storm that got into it.
00:16Melissa happened to be just that.
00:18Absolutely, Melissa. It was just too much warm water that has been in the Caribbean.
00:22There's been no storms that have affected, have traversed this area yet this year, so that means there's a lot of heat energy available for rocket fuel to power an intensifying hurricane, and that's just what happened over the weekend.
00:35That's exactly what AccuWeather Meteorologist Hurricane experts had forecast.
00:39And look at the storm is slowly making its way to the west-northwest at three miles per hour, and that is one of the major problems with this storm is that the torrential rain across parts of southern Hispaniola and Jamaica
00:52will continue here for several days on end, and that adds to the flooding risk, which is one of many threats with this storm.
01:00And, of course, we continue to follow this storm northward.
01:03It is going to linger in the Caribbean for a while, but then it should shoot off to the northeast.
01:08It will. What's going to happen is this big dip in the jet stream here in the eastern United States that we've been talking about,
01:14that was going to steer Melissa to the north and northeast and accelerate it.
01:19Look at the storm. We'll stay in the Caribbean for a few days, as you mentioned, but then we'll be rocketing off to the north and east.
01:25And the two areas we've been concerned about, south Florida, the risk for any impacts there is lowering very quickly.
01:31As soon as that storm turns to the north, we'll be able to all clear south Florida, so a very small risk for any impacts there remain.
01:39And the other area that we're watching closely is Atlantic Canada and maybe the main coastline.
01:44But even there, the risk looks like it's decreasing as the storm is most likely to pass out to sea.
01:50And close to Jamaica and here, we are expecting it to make landfalls, a major hurricane, maybe some weakening after Jamaica.
01:56That's still a question as to how much Jamaica can weaken it.
01:59There will be some land interaction that can reduce the wind intensity a bit.
02:03We're expecting landfall at 7 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday.
02:08Then the storm will be crossing the island from south to north and expect the worst conditions along into the east of the track of the storm,
02:16including the capital city of Kingston and many, many communities there.
02:20And then, as you mentioned, the storm is going to reemerge out over the water and likely a major hurricane hit coming to southeastern Cuba.
02:27And it's going to be approaching at an angle, which is also a problem for storm surge concerns in Cuba as well.
02:33All the while, the rain, heavy rain, torrential rain continues across parts of southern Haiti and southern Dominican Republic as well.
02:40We start with a look at those winds first because those will be problematic, unfortunately, for areas near and just east of the eyewall,
02:48which looks to stay west of Kingston itself.
02:52Right. Wind gusts still possible around 120 miles per hour in the Kingston area.
02:58This is going to risk damaging critical infrastructure.
03:01And we all remember what happened with Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
03:04So the impacts in an area that does not have as much infrastructure as other parts of the world and the structures may not be able to sustain the winds as well.
03:14It's a big concern for serious damage here across the Caribbean.
03:19And, of course, that damaging wind will also make its way up toward Cuba as well.
03:22And then look at this storm surge.
03:24We're talking about anywhere from 10 to 15 feet in the hardest hit areas, 6 to 10 feet in the Kingston area.
03:30That's a problem because that could damage utilities, water processing facilities, electric utilities.
03:37That could prolong the suffering as well.
03:39And then another significant storm surge problem across southeastern Cuba, as I mentioned,
03:44as well as the storm makes landfall again there at midweek.
03:48One of the biggest concerns and takeaways from this really has been the rain.
03:51We've already seen it raining for a day in Kingston, and there's still more to come.
03:56Much more to come, 24 to 36 inches in Kingston.
04:00An AccuWeather local storm max of 50 in the Western Caribbean.
04:03That is the scale of how much rain is going to be associated with this storm
04:08and why we're so concerned, especially in steep terrain, where that water can run off the mountains
04:12and result in significant flooding and landslides.
04:15Some communities, Melissa, may be cut off from other areas for days or weeks on end.
04:21A true life-threatening situation, it's not often that we use catastrophic impacts across such a wide area,
04:27but we have that from Jamaica toward the southern part of Hispaniola here as a result of all these impacts.
04:34As you know from last week, Melissa was rated a 5 by AccuWeather hurricane experts
04:39on the AccuWeather real impact scale for hurricanes, which is the most holistic view of hurricane impacts.
04:45This is a slow-moving disaster.
04:47There's really no other way to state it than that.
04:49We know that there already has been loss of life and there will be more to come.
04:54What is a humanitarian crisis?
04:56We've been talking about the risk for this to quickly escalate to a humanitarian crisis
05:01with widespread injuries and tragically loss of life.
05:05That's why we've done everything we can do here at AccuWeather to get the message out about these widespread impacts.
05:10And it appears there's going to be a large number of people in need of the basics during and after the storm.
05:15Food, clean water, shelter, medical care, the kinds of things that are going to be urgently required in the aftermath of the storm.
05:24There could be infrastructure failures, power, clean water, things of that nature.
05:28And of course, with poor sanitation, there's a risk for disease in the immediate aftermath of the storm,
05:34which can unfortunately prolong the suffering.
05:36And the bottom line is this is going to require a tremendous amount of help, not only in Jamaica,
05:42but across other parts of the Western Caribbean here.
05:46And there's going to be a tremendous need for international relief in order to be able to help people in the aftermath of this serious storm.
05:55No two storms are the same.
05:56Talking about Maria kind of helped put it in perspective for me this morning.
06:00Thank you, Chief Meteorologist John Porter, again, for joining us.
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