\u201cWe hit an updraft-downdraft combination that jolted the plane pretty good,\u201d he recalled of one of his Hurricane Hunter flights into the monster storm that left a trail of destruction across the Caribbean.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the P-3, nicknamed Kermit, punched through the storm\u2019s eyewall, the turbulence became so severe that the pilot aborted the mission and returned to home base in Central Florida, where crewmembers of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) disembarked to make a safety inspection of the plane.<\/p>\n
All was well with the aircraft, and flights into the storm to gather the critical data forecasters need to issue advisories and to plot storm tracks resumed the next day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had experienced very intense storms before,\u201d said Hazelton, an associate scientist at NOAA\u2019s Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies<\/a> (CIMAS), which is based at the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science<\/a>. \u201cBut Melissa was probably the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n Record-setting storm\u00a0<\/p>\n Melissa roared ashore in southwest Jamaica on Oct. 28 as a Category 5 hurricane with top winds of 185 miles per hour. But it will take \u201cextensive post-analysis to determine exactly where it ranks among landfalling Atlantic hurricanes,\u201d the National Hurricane Center (NHC) wrote in a discussion text<\/a> that Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n What is already clear is that the storm, which also battered Cuba, Haiti, and parts of the Bahamas, stunned scientists in the way it behaved\u2014from undergoing extreme rapid intensification (gaining at least 58 miles per hour over a 24-hour period), rarely seen in a hurricane, to perhaps failing to undergo a typical eyewall replacement cycle.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was much different than past cases of other storms this hurricane season in that it rapidly intensified, leveled off for a bit, then intensified again,\u201d Hazelton said of Melissa\u2019s periods of rapidly intensifying winds.<\/p>\n During his Hurricane Hunter flight into the storm just before it struck Jamaica, he processed a dropsonde wind gust reading of 219 knots, or 252 miles per hour. \u201cWhen I saw the 113 [meters per second] (219 knots) just above the surface, I couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d Hazelton posted on X<\/a>. \u201cMy display only goes to 100 by default.\u201d<\/p>\n Initial analysis shows the reading is the \u201cstrongest such dropsonde wind gust recorded in a hurricane,\u201d Hazelton said.<\/p>\n Warm Caribbean waters at depth fueled Melissa, ramping up its intensity. \u201cAlmost the entire Caribbean is like a degree above normal, so there\u2019s a lot of high ocean heat content,\u201d Hazelton explained. \u201cThe water below the surface was warmer than usual, and that\u2019s important because Melissa was a slow-moving storm that churned up water below. Normally, if a hurricane moves that slowly, it churns up cold water from deep below. But because the Caribbean is so warm way down, Melissa was churning up water that was still warm. So, it was able to just keep feeding itself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Hazelton\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/hurricane-melissa-embed1-940x529.webp.webp\")
\nAndy Hazelton aboard Kermit during one of his flights into Melissa. Image courtesy of NOAA<\/p>\n
![\"Hurricane](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/hurricane-melissa-embed2-940x583.webp.webp\")