00:00For the latest on this hurricane, Hurricane Melissa, we're now joined by AccuWeather Chief
00:04Meteorologist John Porter. And John, you know, Jamaica, not a huge area geographically.
00:10We were talking to the weather matrix, Jesse Farrell, the distance between Kingston and
00:15Montego Bay, about that of between New York City and Philadelphia. But with a hurricane,
00:21conditions vary quite a bit from one mile to the next. Yeah, they sure do, especially with Melissa,
00:25because it has a tight inner core in terms of where the strongest winds are. It might be 20 miles
00:33across. You can see here with the eye of the storm system as it's making its way north through the
00:39island of Jamaica at this time. And it's along that path here that the core of the destructive winds
00:46are going to traverse. And it may be a narrow area, but in that area, including near Montego Bay,
00:53it looks like that's where we're going to have significant destruction. And in fact,
00:57it may look like we're used to seeing in pictures in the United States, tragically,
01:01EF3, EF4 tornadoes that can have damage that completely level homes and things of this nature.
01:08That can happen with a tornado in a small area, maybe sometimes a part of a neighborhood
01:12or a part of a city. Here, it could be in an area from the southern part of the island to the north
01:18in a narrow area, again, near Montego Bay. And the storm chasers we're interacting with are telling
01:24us that they are seeing damage, structural damage and so forth. And just historically, John, I know
01:30this is about the lives lost. It's about the people in harm's way. But sometimes the numbers do help us
01:35gain a little bit of perspective. This is not a once every 20 or 30 year event.
01:40No, it is not. This is a historic landfall. Of course, it's the first category five hurricane landfall
01:46in Jamaica's known documented history. First, higher than a category four landfall.
01:53The highest previously was Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 that made landfall in the southeast part of
01:59Jamaica as a category three hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale with maximum
02:04sustained winds of 125 miles per hour. This is a whole different storm in terms of the intensity.
02:10And notice, when you look at strongest hurricanes at landfall on record,
02:14it is tied for the number one spot with 185 mile per hour sustained winds, tied with the Labor Day
02:21hurricane on a pressure basis as well. 892 millibars or 26.35 inches of mercury, for example,
02:30incredibly low pressure. Number two, or the next storm down on that list was Dorian in 2019 with a bit
02:37higher pressure, but still maximum sustained winds of 185 miles an hour. This puts into context how
02:44significant a storm this is. And John, obviously, we're seeing some change to the character of the storm with
02:51massive mountains that the storm is interacting with. But you've been doing this for a long time. And when you look at a
02:55satellite image like this with the stats and so forth, what comes to mind for you? What do you think about for the current
03:00status and also moving forward into Cuba and the Turks and Caicos and Bahamas? Well, a couple things come to mind. One is that
03:05there's still going to be a core of destructive winds right along that eyewall path through Jamaica, as we talked about. But the entire
03:14island, as you mentioned, could have wind gusts of 70, 80 miles per hour, still dealing with a very significant storm surge on the
03:21southern part of the island. And then the concern is going to be as the storm starts to pull away from Jamaica, the wind is going to go around to the
03:28north and west on the north coast near Montego Bay. And that's going to push water to the coast. That's why we're
03:34concerned about a six to 10 foot storm surge there. I was just talking with AccuWeather expert meteorologist
03:39Brett Anderson. Brett was telling me that the high tide at Montego Bay is around 7 p.m. local time. So that means
03:46that that's going to amplify the storm surge impacts there. Population wise, you've got Kingston, the biggest
03:51city, over 600,000 people there. Metro area about 1.2 million. But a lot of vacationers, a lot of Americans may
03:57be in places like Montego Bay to the northwest. As you'll notice, the population density map increases
04:02there. It does. The eastern half of the island has a higher density of population on average than the
04:08west. But the communities in the western part, especially the southwest and the south coast,
04:13are the ones that are being impacted by the most by the storm. And Montego Bay is a particular concern
04:19because it's a city of about 100,000 people. It's a heavy, a large tourist destination. And we have
04:27information. It's being widely reported that there are tourists stranded in Montego Bay, including
04:32some Americans who could not get flights out prior to the airport closing. So that's a particular concern
04:39with the core of the devastating winds coming up near Montego Bay. People in Montego Bay and other
04:45parts of western Jamaica need to remain in their safest shelter that they can now to ride out the
04:52duration of the storm. And as the eye makes its way across a particular area, the winds can get calm.
04:58Don't be lulled into any false sense of security. On the other side of that eye, the conditions are
05:03going to rapidly deteriorate. So you have to stay in your safe shelter. The storm is then going to merge
05:07back over the water. And we're concerned this could be a category four hurricane on the
05:12Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale as it approaches southeast Cuba late tonight.
05:19And John, we have big mountains there in southeast Cuba as well. There's a mountain range that runs
05:23through part of that area. Mountains and hurricanes, not a good combination. A lot of extra lift,
05:29aggravating flash flooding, mudslide concerns. We've got a lot of issues here.
05:33Yeah, that's a very important point. The mountains, the flow up over the mountainous terrain
05:37of that tropical moisture in place. It's like a sponge. It can wring out extra rainfall. And that's
05:44why rain amounts can be enhanced, adding to the mudslide risk there. And also the problem with this
05:49storm is just above the ground, some of the wind is greatly accelerated. So in the higher elevations,
05:55the risk for wind damage is amplified. And as far as the coast of southern and southeastern Cuba,
06:03we may see a storm surge there that equals some of that in the rocky coastline of Jamaica.
06:08Exactly. Look out there. That's going to be, especially because of the angle of the approach,
06:12that's going to drive a significant amount of water right at the coastline there. And especially in
06:17those bays and inlets, there can be a storm surge of 10 to 15 feet with an AccuWeather local storm max of
06:2418 feet in terms of the storm surge. That can be deadly. It's one of the largest risks associated with
06:31this hurricane and all hurricanes. And John talked about the rainfall there. You can see our forecast
06:35of multiple feet of rain. Some of the south facing slopes will approach that AccuWeather local storm
06:40max of 50 inches. So John, this is one where the problems are not going to go away in a week or two.
06:45No, they're not. This is going to result, as we've talked about, in a humanitarian crisis with many
06:50people needing the basics, food, water, clean water, medical care and shelter in the immediate
06:57aftermath of the storm. That's why the storm is rated a five on AccuWeather's real impact scale
07:02for hurricanes. The highest designation achieved by only a few hurricanes. And it puts into perspective
07:08the scale of this natural disaster. Some parts of Jamaica are not going to look the same as they
07:15did before the storm. And there are going to need to be a lot of people in need of a lot of help
07:21that's going to have to come from around the world in order to help that long recovery process,
07:26which is not going to be days. It's not going to be weeks. It's not going to be months. It's years
07:31and 10 years or more decades in some of the hardest hit communities, which is certainly going to be a
07:37long road. A lot of support needed in those areas. All right, this is the storm that we had feared here
07:42in Jamaica. AccuWeather chief meteorologist John Porter, thanks again for all the details. Thank you.
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