Hurricane Melissa and Climate Change

The warming of the world’s oceans caused by climate change helped double Hurricane Melissa’s wind speed in less than 24 hours over the weekend, climate scientists said Monday. Melissa is currently a Category 5 storm, the highest category, with sustained wind speeds of over 157 mph. Melissa is forecast to make landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday before crossing Cuba and the Bahamas through Wednesday.

Scientists said this is the fourth storm in the Atlantic this year to undergo rapid intensification of its wind speed and power. “That part of the Atlantic is extremely warm right now — 86 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 2 to 3 degrees above normal,” said Akshay Deoras, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, in the United Kingdom. “And it’s not just the surface. The deeper layers of the ocean are also unusually warm, providing a vast reservoir of energy for the storm.”

Understanding Rapid Intensification

Deoras, who has tracked the impact of climate change on weather phenomena for decades, said scientists are seeing storms intensify quickly. “Climate change is fundamentally changing our weather. It does not mean that every single tropical cyclone is going to go through rapid or super-rapid intensification. However, in our warmer world, it will continue to increase the likelihood of storms going through rapid and super-rapid intensification,” said Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist at Climate Central, an independent group of scientists and communicators.

A 2023 study had found that Atlantic hurricanes are now more than twice as likely as before to intensify rapidly from minor storms to powerful and catastrophic events. The study looked at 830 Atlantic tropical cyclones since 1971. It found that in the last 20 years, 8.1% of storms powered from a Category 1 minor storm to a major hurricane in just 24 hours. That happened only 3.2% of the time from 1971 to 1990, according to a study in the journal Scientific Reports.

Storms More Likely to Intensify

The U.S. National Hurricane Center has warned of “catastrophic flash flooding and numerous landslides ” from Melissa in Jamaica, where some areas could receive up to 40 inches of rain. The storm has already killed at least four people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Climate scientists have long warned that warming oceans — driven by greenhouse gas emissions — are making such explosive storm development more common.

“We’re living in a warmer world, and that means hurricanes are more likely to intensify quickly, especially near coastlines,” Deoras said. Storms intensifying faster near land poses greater risks to lives and infrastructure, said Deoras. “If a hurricane forms deep in the ocean and just dissipates over the ocean, it’s fine. It’s not going to affect anyone. But if it forms close to the coast, and if it just crosses the coast, as we are going to see in the case of Jamaica and other regions, it’s a big problem,” he said.

A fisherman ties boats in preparation for the forecasted arrival of Hurricane Melissa in Old Harbour, Jamaica, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Islands at Risk

The impact of climate change is putting lives at risk on islands and in coastal areas, Placky said. “With 90% of our extra heat going into our oceans, we’re seeing these oceans warm and they’re rising. And that plays out with sea level rise. So even outside of any storm, the water levels are getting higher. They’re creeping away at our coastlines and they’re going farther inland,” she said.

A storm like Melissa only compounds these impacts, according to Placky. “These storms are really ripping away at the coastal infrastructure of these islands,” she said. The NOAA predicted a busier-than-usual Atlantic hurricane season this year, with 13 to 18 named storms, five to nine hurricanes and two to five major hurricanes. After a slow start, that’s been largely accurate, with 13 storms and four major hurricanes and roughly another month left in the season.

The impact of such storms increases the urgency for global action to reduce the amount of planet-heating gases released into the atmosphere according to policymakers in