Hurricane Melissa was packing sustained winds of up to 175 mph (282 kph) on Monday afternoon, as the slow-moving Category 5 storm was on course to barrel into Jamaica, in what could be the largest on record for the Caribbean island.

As of 2 p.m. (1800 GMT), Melissa was a “catastrophic” storm, the strongest possible on the Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. The NHC expects Melissa to move over Jamaica late Monday or in the early hours of Tuesday, cross eastern Cuba the following night and move over the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos by Wednesday.

The storm’s slow movement over unusually tepid Caribbean water had contributed to its ballooning size and strength, NHC forecasters said, threatening Jamaica with days of never-before-seen catastrophic wi

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