The final report released by the National Hurricane Center this week confirmed something that many of us suspected. Hurricane Melissa (2025) is now tied for the strongest Atlantic Ocean hurricane on record.
New Information About Hurricane Melissa
We already knew that Melissa was the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in Jamaica. As it approached New Hope, Jamaica on October 28, it had maximum sustained winds of 185 mph. “The strongest hurricane (in terms of maximum sustained wind speed) to make landfall in the Atlantic basin (with Dorian (2019) in the Bahamas and the Labor Day Hurricane (1935) in the Florida Keys),” according to NOAA.
Tied For Atlantic Basin’s Strongest Hurricane
However, the just-released NHC report offered some breaking news. The strongest winds in the hurricane were estimated to have reached 190 mph, which ties it with Hurricane Allen (1980 for the strongest in the Atlantic Basin. The report noted that the strongest area of winds were likely not even sampled by Hurricane Hunter aircraft. NHC used flight level winds, dropsonde data, and satellite estimates to arrive at the record-tying wind speed. One dropsonde measured a mean wind of 216 mph at in the lowest 150 meters.
An instantaneous peak wind of 252 mph was also measured at an altitude where the pressure was 906 mb. That’s the strongest wind ever measured by a dropsonde in any tropical cyclone, according to the report. The previous record was 240.5 mph in Super Typhoon Megi (2010). Dropsondes are tube-shaped sensors deployed by scientists to measure wind speed and pressure air pressure. Such information is critical in diagnosing the storm and providing information for the numerical weather prediction models.
It is not uncommon for the NHC to provide new or updated information in these final reports. In addition to the winds, Melissa featured a minimum
central pressure of 892 mb, which tied it with the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, for 3rd lowest minimum central pressure. Only Wilma (2005) and Gilbert (1988) were lower.
Hurricane Melissa was a powerful Category 5 storm, which caused at least 95 fatalities and disrupted lives in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and the Bahamas.