Tropical Storm Melissa is nearly stationary in the central Caribbean, with forecasters warning it could soon strengthen and brush past Jamaica as a powerful hurricane.

Article last updated: Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, 11 p.m. ET

As Tropical Storm Melissa crawls through the Caribbean, it will strengthen to a hurricane and unleash torrential rain that may trigger major to extreme flooding and mudslides, endangering lives and property.

Tropical Storm Melissa is lumbering through the Caribbean Sea and bringing a risk of dangerous landslides and life-threatening flooding to Jamaica and southern Hispaniola.

Jamaica is expected to be in the storm's eyewall, which refers to the band of dense clouds surrounding the eye of the hurricane. The eyewall generally produces the fiercest winds and heaviest rainfall, according to Deanna Hence, a professor of climate, meteorology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Melissa may drive dangerous flash flooding for Jamaica and parts of Hispaniola. Then, the storm is expected to strengthen and may become a Category 4 or 5 monster.

Tropical Storm Melissa is expected to strengthen into a hurricane, threatening the northern Caribbean with massive rainfall and life-threatening flooding

Haiti is expected to see catastrophic flash floods and landslides early next week causing “extensive infrastructural damage and potentially prolonged isolation of communities.” The southwestern peninsula of Haiti, from the border of the Dominican Republic to Port-au-Prince, was placed under a hurricane watch and a tropical-storm warning.