Major Hurricane Melissa - 892mb - 185mph at landfall

[Windspeed]

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.

[Windspeed]

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.

[Hotair]

Flooding in Kingston already via this sat image from Copernicus

[Hotair]

Pinpoint eye and significant Lightning visible in this image capture.  Just a monster of a storm. 

[Mello]

32 minutes ago, Hotair said:

Flooding in Kingston already via this sat image from Copernicus

https://www.youtube.com/live/k4Lt_iev8x4

Here's live video of the Flat Bridge (would just be off to the NW of this map N of Spanish Town). You can rewind showing the water level rise over the last 8 hours to where the bridge is now almost completely overtopped.

[Jefflaw77]

Oh man! That ain’t good!

[olafminesaw]

59 minutes ago, Windspeed said:

1 hour ago, olafminesaw said:

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.

It's one of the biggest gaps in weather forecasting, we don't really have any good metrics for predicting ERCs. The hurricane models actually usually do a pretty good job and were spot on in predicting a stable eye through landfall once it reached cat 4 strength 

[Interstate]

You can see the wobbling in the eyewall merger and then watch it become perfect again.

 

https://weather.cod.edu/satrad/?parms=subregional-W_Caribbean-13-48-1-100-1&checked=map&colorbar=undefined

[olafminesaw]

The next recon should make another pass in an hour or so

[eyewall]

Let's see if Josh nails the eye on this one and if it holds the stadium effect to landfall.

[CoastalWx]

It actually looks better now on satellite after whatever happened with that merger. Not good.

[hawkeye_wx]

It is clear something favorable happened to the inner core structure in the last two hours.  The CDO suddenly appears even stronger, the eye has grown in size, and there has been an explosion of intense lightning surrounding the eye.

[Windspeed]

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...

[Scott747]

Recon is gonna find a sub 900 storm.

[Snowlover11]

Insane lightning in that eye wall.

[eyewall]

I am guessing somewhere around Treasure Beach is going to see the worst of it.

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

System is a wonderful casestudy in how to navigate internal processess in the healthiest way possible.

Wow.

[hazwoper]

2 minutes ago, Snowlover11 said:

Insane lightning in that eye wall.

Strengthening at LF.  Not good at all .

[CoastalWx]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

System is a wonderful casestudy in how to navigate internal processess in the healthiest way possible.

Wow.

I was just thinking that. 

[NoCORH4L]

Getting a little forward motion giving it a little more warm water to strengthen? Hopefully hits in the middle where it's mostly goats and chickens. 

[JakkelWx]

WV eye temp rose to -2.76C! 

 

[Nibor]

It almost looks like whatever restructuring occurred in the early morning hours allowed for the eye to expand a bit.

[40/70 Benchmark]

Yea, St Elizabeth's Parish will get wiped.

[NorthArlington101]

27 minutes ago, Windspeed said:

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...

Not looking like a miss, despite that hour detour on this forum yesterday. Shocking how all guidance and the NHC were right. 

[Windspeed]

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.

[40/70 Benchmark]

One of the "best" areas that it could have hit in terms of population....west jog did us a small solid.

[NoCORH4L]

1 minute ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Not looking like a miss, despite that hour detour on this forum yesterday. Shocking how all guidance and the NHC were right. 

Looks like they'll (NHC) be dead nuts actually. Everyone was thinking Montego was going to be on the eastern eyewall lol. 

[NoCORH4L]

Anyone have any good live feeds from near the landfall locale?

[CoastalWx]

1 minute ago, NoCORH4L said:

Looks like they'll (NHC) be dead nuts actually. Everyone was thinking Montego was going to be on the eastern eyewall lol. 

I’m a little worried about them. It could be nasty there.

[CoastalWx]

Just now, CoastalWx said:

I’m a little worried about them. It could be nasty there.

N to NW winds there right off the water and near western eyewall. Hopefully it’s east of them.