Windspeed

The northern eyewall is now onshore.

Hopefully, they will stay out of the southeastern quadrant of the eyewall. Based on radar motion, they should miss it to their west. The terrain at the coast is rather rugged west of Santiago, so surge isn't as much a problem there. But Santiago proper has the harbor and low-lying area. They probably will get some surge, but not as bad as actually taking a hit from within eyewall. Melissa is also moving at a pretty decent clip now, so hopefully inland flooding off of the higher elevations won't compound the issue.

Dropped a category, I see. I figured they'd at least hold at a 4 since the satellite appearance had recovered this evening. But a few knots difference is paltry.

Trying to adjust and pinpoint motion to landfall. Barring any wobbles, it looks like the center will cross somewhere directly between Chivrico and Santiago. There is a small community on route 20 located there with an icon on the coast named Playa Aserradero. Not sure if anyone is familiar with the coastal region there.

Perhaps two to three hours to landfall based on radar.

VHT bursting in the northern eyewall.

Chivrico is a town that might get a direct hit. It's west of Santiago on coastal route 20. It's located at -76.4 W and that looks about where the eye will come ashore. Santiago should be just far enough east to stay out of the eyewall. Fortunately, the location around Chivrico is not as prone to surge. Melissa will be mostly a wind event and hopefully it's gaining enough forward speed to mitigate flash flooding from torrential rain.

Impressive.

Really impressed by how well Melissa's mid level vortex held together and how fast the eyewall is reorganizing. It's not got a lot of time before landfall in Cuba, but it has incredible upper level support and obviously high SSTs to reintensify some in short order. At least maintain current intensity. Should be a Category 4 strike.

Yes. Very warm deep down. *Barry White voice*.... But seriously, deepest 26°C isotherm in the Atlantic is consistently in the western Caribbean around Jamaica and the Caymans.

I can't post an image right now, but the low-level cloud swirl pattern near the surface inside the eye of Melissa right now is very indicative of multiple (at least five or six) large mesovorticies rotating around the eye. If that persists through landfall, pretty much any location inside the eyewall, regardless of quadrant, is going to get wrecked.

Josh has instruments staged.

They may be filming and taking additional dropsonde data. This is getting into historical territory, considering it's going to landfall at this intensity.

Waiting on the dropsonde.

Jamaica doesn't really have much of a shallow shelf. Heat content is high at depth not far from the shore. A positive is that this mitigates surge to the harbors and bays. Still probably looking at 13 to 15 ft somewhere where the SE eyewall comes ashore.

Yeah, I won't disagree. Motion is gaining. Perhaps just inside of three hours.

Ridiculous. Only a handfull of Atlantic hurricanes have been stronger than Melissa and we still have three or so hours to go.

He's in a concrete villa. He will be fine. With daylight hours it should be intense footage.

We may have landfall just after noon, perhaps by 1PM EDT. Trying to approximate this while considering that the forward motion is also slowly increasing as well.

Imagery actually suggests that the diameter of the eye has increased since the merger. Now we have a deep ring of lighting as well. I hate to say this, but it looks like Melissa is undergoing another period of intensification. Certainly somewhat better than a steady-state. Recon will be, *ahem* interesting...

Thank you! Glad Kevin was able to grab an image. Yeah, Melissa's core has been one of the most resilient I can remember since perhaps Dorian and Irma at such a high intensity.

Also, Jamaica has already been getting pounded all night with that right front quad feeder band feeding off the central Caribbean. There appears to be a break in precip between the core and that wide, strong, convectively active feeder. That might help some, but totals are no doubt already adding up over the higher terrain to the central and eastern range.

Jamaica's radar sites are not pulling down. So I jumped to the only other radar site I could find that has the core. This is the tower in Pilon, Cuba. It is quite long range so the echoes are weak from this distance. However, you can still make out Melissa's very symmetrical eyewall. Especially compared to any returns adjacent to it. To my eyes, there may be a moat on the SW backside, but I don't really make out any signs of an EWRC yet. We are running out of time for such to do any damage to the core. It would need to already be underway by now. I'm starting to feel like this is definitely going to be a strong Category 5 strike.

It doesn't matter where he initially set up. He'll go to where he thinks he will punch the core. He always does. I am pretty sure he's relocating west. As for point of landfall, population distribution and characteristics, I highly recommend reading this paper in the Geneva journal of risk management. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348943501_Poverty_and_hurricane_risk_exposure_in_Jamaica I will post this image from the paper below. As you can see, we certainly aren't in any sort of best case scenario if the eye comes ashore further west. About the only positive I can see right now is timing of landfall occurring during daylight hours so people taking shelter can visually see what the hell is unfolding, because it's going to be shear chaos where this core crosses over.

I noticed that, and the NHC may take that data into consideration on their next advisory if Melissa's satellite presentation doesn't degrade. The TC may have finally leveled off, however. It's going to be a while before we have the next recon data, and Melissa may be at peak now. Edit: This is all really just meteorological geekdom. A few more millibars make no difference at this point. The hurricane is already in rare territory.