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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nLocated about 130 miles south-southwest of Kingston, Jamaica, Melissa is moving toward the west at about 3 mph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A slow turn toward the northwest and north is expected today and tonight before a northeastward acceleration beginning on Tuesday and through Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Melissa is expected to move near or over Jamaica tonight and Tuesday before going across southeastern Cuba Tuesday night, and across the southeastern Bahamas on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the NHC, data from an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicate that maximum sustained winds have increased to about 160 mph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Melissa is a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The NHC said some strengthening is forecast today, with fluctuations in intensity likely before Melissa makes landfall on Hamaica early Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMelissa is expected to reach Jamaica and southeastern Cuba as a powerful major hurricane, and will still be at hurricane strength when it moves across the southeastern Bahamas,\u201d the NHC said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Destructive winds, storm surge, and catastrophic flooding will worsen in Jamaica through the day and into tonight, the NHC said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A hurricane warning is in effect for Jamaica and the Cuban provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, and Holguin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A hurricane watch is in effect for the southeastern and central Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A tropical storm warning is in effect for Haiti and the Cuban province of Las Tunas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hurricane Melissa is now a Category 5 hurricane, the National Hurricane Center announced. Located about 130 miles south-southwest of Kingston, Jamaica, Melissa is moving toward the west at about 3… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"694","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMTBcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtMTAwLTE4LndlYnA_Zml0PTcwMyUyQzQ3OSZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6Ik1lbGlzc2Egc3RyZW5ndGhlbnMgdG8gQ2F0ZWdvcnkgNSBodXJyaWNhbmUiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.-JofEy3tlB_5pVzX2HIzyg4cd6N8p-T-Bgvq4CF9JjEMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":58715,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-100-18.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[694],"tags":[12468],"class_list":["post-58714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weather-by-o","tag-melissa-strengthens-to-category-5-hurricane"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58716,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58714\/revisions\/58716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}