00:00Not only is it very intense at Category 5, which is at the top end of the hurricane scale,
00:07but also some very slow moving.
00:09It's a very intense storm that's moving very slowly.
00:12How slowly?
00:13Only at about 5 kilometers per hour, essentially a walking pace.
00:17Typically, we'll find hurricanes or tropical storms through this part of the Caribbean
00:20moving 5, maybe 10 times faster than that.
00:23So not only devastating conditions, but for a prolonged period of time,
00:27and that certainly raises the concern above and beyond the already very dangerous Category 5 hurricane Melissa.
00:34Jamaica is set to be hit particularly hard by this.
00:38When are we expecting those effects to be really felt and what's happening there at the moment?
00:44It's been raining in Jamaica since actually this weekend,
00:46but they have not experienced much in the way of wind until the past 12 hours or so.
00:51Conditions continue to deteriorate pretty quickly across the island
00:55and we expect Melissa to make a landfall west of Kingston, Jamaica,
00:59sometime Tuesday morning, Jamaican time, maybe about 15 hours or so from now.
01:05Kingston, the capital, it's very low-lying.
01:08What does that mean in the case of this slow-moving, intense system?
01:13Well, as much as 60 to 90 centimeters of rain can fall over that area.
01:17And keep in mind, there's hilly terrain not too far north of there,
01:22and that can all just fall downstream and into the low-lying area.
01:25So we're a double concern.
01:26Not only the rain, but also the extensive wind.
01:29Wind gusts can reach 160 to 190 kilometers per hour there,
01:34if not even a little bit stronger.
01:35We're factoring some of the gusts.
01:36So it's a double-pronged concern,
01:40not to mention the slow movement of this,
01:42which is going to prolong the agony, unfortunately.
01:44Yeah, and I understand, you know,
01:46no areas of Jamaica will escape the effects of this.
01:49What about the higher elevations there?
01:52What effect will they get from these extremely strong winds?
01:56Yes, the high elevations will probably wind up with the worst of the rain
01:58in terms of total amounts and also the strongest wind gusts.
02:02There could be wind gusts closer to 200 kilometers per hour
02:05over the higher terrain
02:06before Melissa slowly advances northward
02:09later Tuesday night and then into Wednesday.
02:11Next in line would be southeastern Cuba,
02:13probably losing some of its intensity by the time it gets there,
02:17more likely to be a Category 3
02:19by the time it gets there late Tuesday night
02:21or early Wednesday morning local time.
02:24And how does this storm compare
02:26or likely will compare to others that we've seen in the region?
02:29Well, the one thing that stands out, aside from the intensity,
02:32is the fact that it's moving so slowly.
02:34Doing some research and checking,
02:36this is amongst the slowest tropical systems
02:38that have moved through this part of the world since 1971.
02:41Very unusual to have something like this move so very slowly.
02:44Of course, the intensity speaks for itself
02:46with it being a Category 5 at the top end
02:48of the Stafford-Simpson scale.
02:51Bob Larson, Senior Meteorologist with AccuWeather,
02:53thank you so much for the update on that.
02:55Thank you for having me.
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