The already dangerously powerful Category 5 hurricane Melissa surged up to 180 mph maximum sustained winds with gusts over 210 mph Tuesday morning, Oct. 28, according to an update from the National Hurricane Center, just hours away from slamming into Jamaica.

Like many recent hurricanes in the Atlantic basin, Melissa exploded from a tropical storm to a major hurricane in under a day. At the 180 mph threshold it's already heading up into record territory, and if it reached wind speeds of 192 mph, it would surpass a threshold that only five hurricanes and typhoons have reached since 1980, according to Michael Wehner, a climate scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Jim Kossin, a retired federal scientist and science advisor at the nonprofit First Street Foundation

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