Hurricane Melissa has made landfall in western Jamaica as a powerful category five storm and the strongest ever recorded to directly hit the Caribbean nation of 2.8 million people.

Melissa made landfall on Tuesday, local time, near the town of New Hope, some 62 kilometres south of Montego Bay, packing maximum sustained winds of 298 kilometres per hour, the US National Hurricane Center said in an advisory.

By 3pm local time it had weakened slightly to 258kph, the NHC said, but remained a category five storm, the most powerful level on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

Follow our ABC News live blog as Hurricane Melissa crosses nations in the Caribbean.

The slow-moving storm is forecast to remain a powerful hurricane as it crosses the mountainous island, its highland communities vulnerable to

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