00:00Joining us right now is AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DeSilva.
00:04Alex, you were part of the team that warned about the Caribbean beginning, well, as we got into the September, that it was untouched.
00:14There weren't any storms that went through there.
00:16We knew the water was warm.
00:18And once the wind shear lessened, Melissa, we knew Melissa would explode.
00:24Take a look at the current conditions right now with the storm, Alex.
00:27But certainly very sobering here this morning.
00:31Yeah, it certainly is.
00:31This will be one of the strongest landfalls that we have ever seen in the Atlantic Basin here in a couple of hours once the storm eventually moves onshore.
00:39The hurricane hunters are going to be flying around in the storm momentarily to give us more information on what the storm is doing.
00:46It's possible that when they get in there, they even find a stronger storm.
00:50There's been a lot of lightning in and around the eyewall here in the last few hours.
00:54And I'm afraid this storm might have enough in it to get a little bit stronger.
00:58So a really scary situation unfolding.
01:01I want to show you this, Alex.
01:02You were mentioning this.
01:04If we can take my radar right now here on the arena, you mentioned, look at Alex, take a look at that.
01:11That is the radar.
01:12You're talking about that, about the lightning.
01:14Why does that matter?
01:16Yeah, I mean, essentially what's happening is there's a lot of upward motion around the eyewall during when there's a lot of lightning.
01:22So you're getting a more robust and more powerful eyewall.
01:26And so when you see a lot of lightning, this is a really strong indicator that the storm is strengthening or at the very least maintaining its intensity.
01:35One of the ways we measure the intensity, Alex, is the pressure.
01:40And the pressure, Melissa, down to a very historic level right now.
01:45Yeah, 901 millibars, one of the strongest we've ever seen in the Atlantic.
01:49And it's possible, like I said, that when the hurricane hunters fly through the eye again shortly, we'll have that information for you shortly, it's possible that they find something under 900 millibars, which the last time that happened was Milton of last year.
02:03But it's not common that you see a pressure under 900 millibars.
02:06You can see the hurricanes that have done that over the last couple of years here.
02:10So, of course, you had Milton last year.
02:12But then you have to go all the way back to Wilma.
02:14That is the basin record, 882 millibars.
02:17I don't think we're going to touch that, but we very well could get under 900 millibars.
02:22Another way we can measure the strength of this storm is kind of a unique way.
02:28When we look at the eye of Milton, something that you pointed out to me that was striking,
02:34obviously you're used to seeing the green on the water vapor loop showing you the amount of moisture in the middle and upper part of the atmosphere.
02:42That's not uncommon for a hurricane to see that.
02:45But what it is a little uncommon is looking at the eye, and I'm going to zoom in on this, Alex.
02:51I mean, this is extraordinary.
02:53Yeah, it is.
02:53Look at how dry the eye is.
02:55And, in fact, we're now getting reports that this eye is the driest on record for any cyclone in the satellite era.
03:03And so what that essentially means is that around the eye wall you get a lot of vertical motion.
03:07You have those big thunderstorms.
03:09And then in the eye that air sinks and warms.
03:12And so what we're seeing is that eye right in the middle, we're seeing so much sinking and so much warming of the air in that eye that it's extremely, extremely dry.
03:22And, in fact, once the sun comes up here, which it's starting to now, you'll be able to look down into that eye and see all the way down into the ocean.
03:30There will be no clouds really going on in that eye because it's so, so dry.
03:35Now, the hurricane conditions within Melissa are confined to about 20 miles around the eye center.
03:45So the hurricane conditions aren't very large, but they are going to be quite devastating here.
03:51Yeah, it is a relatively small hurricane, a little bit smaller than average.
03:55So think something like Hurricane Andrew, for example.
03:58Kind of a smaller hurricane.
04:00But it is going to be very, very powerful in that eye wall once it comes on shore in a couple of hours.
04:05But I don't want people to kind of focus on the size of the storm.
04:08It's still bringing a wide swath of rain across these areas.
04:12And so we expect the storm to pass over Jamaica today, probably maintaining a lot of its strength before it eventually goes into Cuba tomorrow.
04:20And I have the area, just bear with me for a second, because as you mentioned, we're going to be going over the impacts.
04:27But from a wind perspective, Alex, where this eye goes through 20 miles in each direction, you get the full brunt of the winds.
04:36And that's where everything from a wind perspective can be completely flattened and destroyed.
04:43Yeah, absolutely.
04:43I mean, if you live in this area, you need to be sheltering like it's a tornado.
04:48You know, get to the lowest level of your home, away from any windows, because it's almost going to be like a tornado is coming through this white boxed area.
04:57The winds are going to be going over 150 miles per hour, wind gusts that is.
05:01So if you're in this area, you need to immediately get to your safe space right now.
05:06Conditions are going to start to go downhill very, very quickly.
05:09The areas that we're talking about is Trelawney, St. Elizabeth, Manchester, and Western St. Anne Parishes across Jamaica being impacted the most here with the wind.
05:21But Liz, really quickly here, this is a devastating storm surge for Jamaica and Cuba, Alex.
05:27You had mentioned that before.
05:29Also, Montego Bay on the northern side.
05:31And as you had mentioned, the rain is just going to be a horrific amount of rain here.
05:37Let me get past this because I want to show you the rainfall.
05:39There it is, Alex.
05:40We haven't changed this at all in the last day or two.
05:43Yeah, these mountains, these areas are very full of mountains.
05:46Jamaica is a very mountainous country.
05:48So is eastern Cuba, Haiti.
05:50And so these mountains act like sponges.
05:52You know, the air pushes up against those mountains.
05:54It rises and then it condenses out.
05:57And it's like squeezing out a sponge.
05:59And so that's why we're expecting potentially feet of rainfall here in Jamaica.
06:04So even the areas that don't get affected by that eye wall are still going to be dealing with some catastrophic amounts of rain.
06:10And I think there's going to be widespread mudslides across the island nation, unfortunately.
06:15AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex Da Silva.
06:17Thanks for joining us here on AccuWeather Early.
Be the first to comment