As Jamaica braces for the most powerful hurricane in island history to make landfall on Tuesday, Hurricane Melissa has reached a grim milestone of becoming one of the strongest hurricanes recorded in the Atlantic Basin.

Forecasters with the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Melissa had steadily intensified to maximum sustained winds of 185 mph Tuesday morning. Melissa was 40 miles south-southeast of Negril, Jamaica, and continued its dangerously slow pace of 7 mph.

Melissa's pressure was down to 892 millibars — a measurement of hurricane intensity where intensity is greater the lower the measurement is.

As of 10 a.m., Melissa tied with the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane for the third-strongest hurricane on record in the Atlantic Basin. Only hurricanes Wilma and Gilbert were stronger,

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