Hurricane Melissa Is So Powerful, Hurricane Hunter Planes Had To Turn Back

Hurricane Melissa, which slammed into Jamaica as a category five storm, was so powerful that it made the Air Force reserves “Hurricane hunters”—the veteran pilots who fly into hurricanes—turn back twice to ensure that their aircraft wasn’t torn apart in mid-air.

The 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron hit “forces stronger than normal,” because even by their standards, Hurricane Melissa was a different beast.

By Tuesday morning, the storm’s near-perfectly circular 10-mile-wide eye had grown before Melissa tore into Jamaica with winds up to 185 mph. This record-breaking Category 5 storm flattened everything in its path. Entire neighborhoods vanished under floodwaters, and traffic lights lay in heaps of debris. The United Nations called the destruction on a level “never seen before.”

Cuba