landfall – Climate- Science.press

Satellite image of Hurricane Melissa approaching Jamaica, showcasing swirling clouds and a distinct eye at the center.

By Paul Homewood

It seems we get a storm or flood of the century nearly every year!

'Storm of the Century' hits the Caribbean, satellite image of the hurricane.

Melissa may well be the most powerful hurricane to hit Jamaica in recent times. But is this significant in itself?

Jamaica is a relatively tiny speck in the Caribbean. Hurricanes barrel across the Caribbean every year. What are the odds of a Cat 5 one making a direct hit on Jamaica? Most would just bypass the island.

So, let’s take a dispassionate look at the facts.

First, and most importantly of all, the death toll in Jamaica at the moment stands at four. This will likely increase over the next few days but is a remarkably low number at this stage.

Secondly, there is no evidence at all that Melissa made landfall with winds of 185 mph, something which has been widely reported across the media as fact. Let me repeat – NO EVIDENCE AT ALL.

Let me explain.

The claim is derived from wind speeds estimated from hurricane hunter aircraft data sometime prior to 11.00 AM EDT. Sustained winds were calculated at 160 kts, or 184 mph.

A bulletin from the National Hurricane Center discussing Hurricane Melissa, highlighting its strengthening and reported wind speeds. — https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2025/al13/al132025.discus.029.shtml

The previous advisory was six hours earlier, so the aircraft data would have been collected sometime during that six-hour period.

Melissa made landfall at 1.00 PM, at least two hours after the aircraft data had been collected, when Melissa would still have been maybe 50 miles or more out at sea. However, there were no further measurements during that time, or at landfall itself. Therefore, the figure of 185 mph was retained as the official “landfall speed”:

Text update from the National Hurricane Center regarding Hurricane Melissa making landfall in Jamaica as a Category 5 storm, noting maximum sustained winds and central pressure.

Hurricanes invariably weaken as they near land, because the sea becomes shallower and the coastline interferes with atmospheric airflow.

The satellite data confirms this weakening, and shows that even before landfall winds were lower than claimed at 155 kts, 178 mph.

Table displaying the track history of Hurricane Melissa, showing synoptic time, latitude, longitude, and intensity levels. — https://rammb-data.cira.colostate.edu/tc_realtime/storm.asp?storm_identifier=al132025

What the windspeeds actually were at landfall, we simply do not know. Nobody measured them. This may sound like I am splitting hairs, but this is, of course, precisely the situation we would have been in prior to the satellite/hurricane hunter era began forty years or so ago. That is why we simply cannot directly compare today’s hurricanes with those of the past.

To put windspeeds into perspective, the highest sustained speed recorded was from Hurricane Allen in 1980, which measured 190 mph.

How does Melissa match up historically? I recently came across this NOAA study from 1983, long before hurricanes were looked at through the lens of global warming.

Cover page of a NOAA report titled 'The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Hurricanes of This Century', authored by Paul J. Hebert and Glenn Taylor, dated January 1983.

Table showing the deadliest hurricanes in the United States from 1900 to 1982, including their names, years, categories, and death tolls.

Was Melissa any worse than Galveston? Or Okechobee? Or the Great Miami hurricane which wiped out Miami in 1926.

Or the strongest US hurricane of the lot, the Labor Day storm in 1935? Or the second most powerful, Camille in 1969?

These, of course, are purely US hurricanes. Many more more wreaked havoc across the Caribbean and elsewhere. The worst of all was the Great Hurricane of 1780, which is estimated to killed 27500 dead in Martinique, Barbados and elsewhere. This is an astonishing number by any account. Winds have since been estimated at over 200 mph.

A closer look at Camille exemplifies well just how observation methods have changed over the years.

In 1969, satellite technology was pretty much useless as far as monitoring hurricanes were concerned, other than for tracking purposes. Hurricane hunter aircraft tended to be pot luck as well, unable to fly inside hurricanes for hours on end in order to find the peak winds, which they routinely do nowadays.

The official report stated that hurricane hunters had estimated sustained winds of 190 mph, based on dropsonde data. But this was ten hours before landfall and no further flights were made.

The official data for Camille states that winds at landfall were 175 mph. These were derived from two land based recordings of barometric pressure, both of which were close to the eyewall and both instruments were inspected later and confirmed as reliable.

Comparing Camille and Melissa then is comparing chalk and cheese. Wind speeds for the former are accurate at landfall but Melissa’s are not at landfall at all but 50 or so miles out at sea, when they would have been higher.

Whatever the wind speeds were, there can be mistaking the devastation wrought in August 1969, as the before and after photos of the Richelieu Apartment block show:

Aerial view of the Richelieu Apartments prior to Hurricane Camille, showing the building and surrounding area.

Aerial view of the Richelieu Apartments after the devastation caused by Hurricane Camille, showing extensive damage to the surrounding area. — https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/about_us/meet_us/roger_pielke/camille/gallery.html

Let me be clear. I am not in any way trying to minimise how powerful and damaging Melissa was. It was a terrible storm and a historic one.

But it is a sad fact of life that hurricanes like Melissa have always brought death and destruction to the Caribbean, Gulf and Atlantic coasts of America, and they always will.

From Jennifer Marohasy

By jennifer

When it comes to extreme weather, cyclones are top of my list. The most extreme cyclone to hit Queensland, Tropical Cyclone Mahina, was arguably the world’s most intense with a central pressure recorded at 880 hectopascals, a 12-metre storm surge, and 300 kilometre per hour winds. It was named, by Queensland government meteorologist, Clement Wragge. That was in 1899 – 126 years ago.

Contrary to popular narratives cyclones are not becoming more intense, and their frequency is waning. CSIRO research has confirmed a statistically significant downward trend in the annual number of tropical cyclones in the Australian region over the period extending from 1981/82 to 2017/18 that is during the satellite period. The intensity of these cyclones is also in decline.

The number and intensity of cyclones crossing the Australian mainland is in decline but only considering the last 50 years.

This is perhaps some comfort to those watching the approach of Tropical Cyclone Alfred in southeast Queensland and northeast New South Wales. TC Alfred has a central pressure of 978 hectopascals (1316 UTC 6^th March 2025) and is sustaining winds near its centre of 95 kilometres per hour with wind gusts to 130 kilometres per hour already being experienced along the coast to Lennox Heads.

TC Alfred will pack a bad punch. But southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales have sustained such low pressure and strong winds before. The best idea is to make sure you have a stash of water, and also a gas cylinder. There is nothing quite like being able to make a cup of tea on the camping stove when the mains electricity and water is not working.

In fact, during the period 1935 to 1974 every other year there was a cyclone making landfall as far south as Brisbane and into New South Wales. There were two cyclones making landfall as far south as New South Wales in 1934: on January 30th and then again on February 19th. Two cyclones also made landfall in New South Wales in 1959: TC Beatrice and TC Connie. These four cyclones are listed in a journal article by J.L. Gray et al. entitled ‘On the Recent Hiatus of Tropical Cyclones Landfalling in NSW, Australia’ published in the Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science in 2020.

The climate follows cycles, and it is the case that there has been a hiatus of tropical cyclones making landfall near Brisbane.

There was a period of some decades during the first half of the twentieth century when cyclones were given numbers rather than names. That was immediately following the formation of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the appointment of Henry A. Hunt as its founding director on 1 January 1907.

Headquartered in Melbourne, the first thing Hunt did was focus on consolidating ‘the disparate’ state services. In fact, he immediately sacked Clement Wragge and some other first-class meteorologists with attitudes and also discontinued Wragge’s naming of cyclones.

Wragge was ahead of his time. Hunt did recognise the value of the white louvred boxes, now known as Stevenson screens, that Wragge began using in some parts of Queensland a good two decades before they were later installed, under Hunt’s directives in New South Wales and Victoria beginning only in 1908. So, a reliable temperature record exists back to the late 1880s for parts of Queensland, a good twenty years before the southern states.

We know from the work of Clement Wragge, still denied by many particularly in Melbourne, that not only were the cyclones severe back in the 1890s it was also very hot sometimes.

Tag: landfall

Hurricane Melissa

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Some Climate History, Including on Cyclones Making Landfall as Far South as Brisbane

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