Overview
- Tropical Storm Melissa held 50 mph winds Wednesday with the center roughly 300–335 miles south-southwest of Port-au-Prince, moving about 2 mph, and tropical-storm-force winds extending 105–115 miles.
- A hurricane watch is posted for Haiti’s southwestern peninsula and a tropical storm watch for Jamaica, with hurricane conditions possible in Haiti by late Thursday and tropical-storm conditions in Jamaica Thursday or Friday.
- The National Hurricane Center expects Melissa to strengthen into a hurricane within 24–48 hours while it lingers over very warm Caribbean waters.
- Forecasters call for 5–10 inches of rain through Friday across southern Haiti, the Dominican Republic and eastern Jamaica, with significant flash flooding and landslides possible and locally higher totals if the storm stalls.
- Long-range track is highly uncertain, with scenarios ranging from a northward turn near Hispaniola to a slow westward drift toward Central America; a direct U.S. hit is unlikely for now but not impossible, with rough surf and rip currents possible along the East Coast.