Hurricane Melissa continues to intensify right up to landfall, with some of the most prolific lightning bursts you’ll see in a hurricane’s core.
— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) October 28, 2025
I’ve tracked every single Atlantic hurricane since 2015, and Melissa is easily the most insane one yet. pic.twitter.com/B07DrGpfpq
This footage from inside the eye of Category 5 Hurricane Melissa might be the most jaw-dropping video ever captured of a hurricane’s eye, showcasing the infamous “stadium effect." pic.twitter.com/AEhj2g2Ban
— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) October 27, 2025
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Levi has a good wrapup at his blog Tropical Tidbits. Jamaica is going to be a disaster, but so is Cuba. Good thing the fleet is in the Caribbean right now, they are excellent responders. Carriers make lots and lots of clean fresh water and have medical facilities.
That eye footage is awe inspiring.
I have always been amazed that you can fly an airplane through a hurricane. Not being a fan of turbulence, I'm sure I would absolutely hate it.
Imagine being in one of the solar system's larger storms, like Jupiter's Red Spot or anything on the other gas giants!
Interesting that they use a prop plane.
3I/ATLAS and Melisa, a power couple taking the earth by storm.
On Ballybran storm winds are in Mach scale!
Original Mike - I had the same thought about the use of prop planes. Here’s what the internet told me:
Propeller-driven planes, specifically turboprops, are used to fly into hurricanes because they are more resilient to hail and extreme weather, are more fuel-efficient for low-altitude, long-duration flights, and provide better performance and control at lower speeds. Their engines are less likely to be damaged by ingested ice or water, and the propellers offer instantaneous thrust control, which is critical for maneuvering in turbulent conditions.
Thanks, Whiskeybum.
A bunch of years ago I briefly dated a girl name Melissa (“Melly”). Naming a dangerous hurricane after her seems appropriate.
Second Big Mike - probably not the same Melissa (red head?).
Jaw dropping awesome! Beautiful, brutal and powerful Nature. The idea that we think we can control "Mother Nature" by banning plastic straws, leaf blowers, eating bugs and plastic food ....is hubris, ridiculous, a delusion.
In the big scheme of geological time, humans are just a blink in the eye of time. Inconsequential in the long term. Barring releasing nuclear war on the Earth...we are not going to change things. AND even if we did release the Kraken upon the world....over time...long time....we will be forgotten, fossils for a new species to discover.
It's a doozy.
Regarding propellor planes used in hurricane research, back in 1988 a Boeing 737 flew through a storm cell trying to land at New Orleans and both engines flamed out due to excessive hail and water ingestion. In a masterpiece of flying skill the pilot managed a dead stick landing on a levee. Ain’t no levees out over the Caribbean.
I didn't recall Hurricane Gilbert, that had some of these same characteristics in 1988, after it hit Jamaica, it went west to Mexico and even into the interior of this country
Always crazy to see the clear blue skies above the eye…
Melissa is an appropriate name for a dangerous woman. It's ancient Greek for 'honey bee'. (So is 'Melitta' - just a different dialect.) Beware the sting!
As for hurricanes, some supposed expert was complaining last night that Melissa wasn't going where she was supposed to. Well, duh! Something I read about hurricanes years ago that I hadn't thought of but made such perfect sense that it's obviously true:
Smaller hurricanes tend to follow prevailing winds and be guided by - or even bounce off of - warm and cold fronts. Larger hurricanes go where they want, being too large to be affected by winds and fronts. The largest hurricanes are naturally the least predictable.
yes, we say we are masters of the universe, and then Nature reminds us otherwise, of course back in 1988, there was a wise man in Dr, William Gray, long since retired,
In a masterpiece of flying skill the pilot managed a dead stick landing on a levee.
The son of friends is working on hours to be a commercial pilot. I can't imagine training for as long as he is, for - essentially - a situation you pray will not arise in your entire career, and then suddenly having to access that training. Sure, pilots hold lives in their hands on every flight, but my understanding is that most - almost all? - of what they do is plain old routine
Okay, but what's the best Atlantic hurricane ever?
I have always been amazed that you can fly an airplane through a hurricane. Not being a fan of turbulence, I'm sure I would absolutely hate it.
Wind velocity and turbulence are related (cf. Reynolds numbers and Navier-Stokes equations), but not necessarily in lockstep. You can have high velocity flow inside a hurricane or jet stream that is effectively laminar and therefore relatively smooth, or you can have strong turbulence in much lower velocity air, for example the wingtip vortices that occasionally cause a small private aircraft following a large jetliner to crash. An aircraft moving with an air mass in laminar flow, i.e. not traversing any boundary layers between air masses flowing at different speeds, will have the same true air speed and smooth ride as on a nice sunny day in still air. But the ground speed may be vastly different.
I'm guessing there's turbulence in a hurricane.
pilots hold lives in their hands on every flight, but my understanding is that most - almost all? - of what they do is plain old routine
With modern avionics it's possible to push one button on the runway, initiating autopiloted takeoff to a complicated predetermined flight plan, and successfully landing the plane without ever touching the controls again. You do have to know what numbers to enter into the autopilot, but dispatchers and computers do a lot of the donkey work for a commercial pilot.
Always respect Mother Nature. This is going to be very, very, bad for the people of Jamaica, and likely eastern Cuba as well. Melissa is one for the record books. You don't see them like this very often.
@Bob Boyd - Hurricane season ends Nov 30.
Pilots earn their pay when the excrement has devolved upon the fan blades.
@Bob - Sorry, I misread your question. I believe you have to go back to Hurricane Gilbert or Wilma to see anything equivalent to Melissa.
The lack of movement over the last week was a major concern. The slower the movement, the greater the damage. Wilma in 2005 did the same thing on Cozumel, where it hung out for 3 days. It will not be good for Jamaica or Cuba. Hopefully it will pick up speed as it heads north.
The ability of jets to handle rain and hail has greatly increased since 1988. Each such event provides knowledge for better design. Landing on the levy was a late decision over landing on the water. Interestingly, it was quite a dilemma to move the jet after the landing.
It was an amazing story. The pilot was Sully before Sully. The TACA pilot was 29 years old at the time, but with a cray 13,000+ flight hours, mostly as Pilot-In-Command. He started flying as a teenager. He was no ordinary pilot. Oh, and he was blind in one eye from gunfire in El Salvador.
So this is the result of cow farts and using gas stoves? Impressive.
Yipes!
On Oct. 28, 2025, just hours before Hurricane Melissa made landfall on Jamaica, the 53rd WRS reported via social media that one of their aircraft had encountered beyond normal turbulence while operating near the eye of the storm. The aircraft, flying under the mission callsign TEAL 75, was forced to abort its mission under safety rules which require an aircraft to be inspected for damage after exceeding stated stress limits. -The Aviationist
https://theaviationist.com/2025/10/28/hurricane-hunters-scrub-missions-hurricane-melissa/
Oh, and he was blind in one eye from gunfire in El Salvador.
How on earth did he get a waiver for a first-class medical? I've never heard of such a thing.
"So this is the result of cow farts and using gas stoves? Impressive."
Yes, cow farts are special. 100 million buffalo and tens of thousands of mastodons and before humans arrived in North America, plains full of megafauna caused no such effects.
Hurricane Andrew was small in size but packed a wallop like no other. Kinda like Rocky Marciano.
Escape, Old Time Radio program. Episode is 'Typhoon' based on the Conrad story. Maybe the single best radio drama I've ever heard. Script, story, acting, sound effects, incidental music all brilliant. Stars Frank Lovejoy. Near the end after being battered and nearly sunk, the ship enters the eye.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTm5-qHbnJ8&t=818s
Most insane hurricane in what way? I can think of much worse hurricanes than this one. It is actually a fairly small one at that.
Hassayamper said...
"Oh, and he was blind in one eye from gunfire in El Salvador.
How on earth did he get a waiver for a first-class medical? I've never heard of such a thing."
I seem to recall that Wiley Post flew around the world with one eye.
Don't run back home
To Melissa
However sweet
You think she is.
A few hours ago I read that the barometric pressure inside Melissa was a little over 26 inches. I looked at the gauge I have on our living room wall...it doesn't start until 28 (Stormy)!
Terrifyingly beautiful.
At 153 of the McCarthy video you can see the brain of the hurricane.
I seem to recall that Wiley Post flew around the world with one eye.
Perhaps so, but he only killed Will Rogers when he crashed. A commercial pilot of a B737 is potentially going to kill more than a hundred people if his faculties fail him.
can humans poke hurricane in eye with UAV drones?
Number of hurricane hunter planes lost since 1946: 1.
Supposedly, footage from inside one of the storm chasers. This looks more P-3 ish than c-130 ish:
https://x.com/FlconEYES/status/1983013324880028108
A rare bit of good news for Jamaica is that the catastrophe bond issued through the World Bank is almost certain to pay out, up to $150 million, to aid in recovery efforts.
"How on earth did he get a waiver for a first-class medical? I've never heard of such a thing."
Don't know. But the eye was wounded during a flight. Maybe the Honduran government gave him a waiver. He flew for TACA, which we used to refer to as "Taka A Chance Airlines"
@Hassayamper, if you’re still checking this thread, the captain of the flight was Carlos Dárdano, and at the time of the incident he was 29 and had accumulated more than 13,400 flight hours. He really did lose the use of his left eye 6 years before the dead stick landing incident when the DC-3 he was flying in El Salvador was fired upon by terrorists. I would have expected him to have lost his depth perception, but in fact the US FAA did certify him to fly into American airports.
Dárdano seems to have been an exceptionally gifted flier. When he went from El Salvador to Florida to study for his commercial license, it took him only ten hours to achieve it. Instrument rating took another forty, and multiengine rating took only another seven or so.
Go ahead and Google him. His career seems to have been pretty amazing.
@Emmanuel, my Melissa was a blonde, with hair so light in color it looked white. Not that she was ever “mine,” if you know what I mean. I was looking for a wife and she was the definition of a free spirit so no hope of it working. That was 53 years ago so she’d be well into her seventies by now. I hope she found happiness.
"A rare bit of good news for Jamaica is that the catastrophe bond issued through the World Bank is almost certain to pay out, up to $150 million, to aid in recovery efforts."
Drop, bucket.
I once knew a young woman who was a C-130 crew member on these flights. She had an interesting way of regaining sanity and confirming she was still alive when her workday was done.
Life looks back to normal in Kingston. Here is a live webcam site.
https://www.skylinewebcams.com/en/webcam/jamaica/surrey-county/kingston/half-way-tree.html
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