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Hurricane Melissa grew into one of the most powerful Atlantic tropical cyclones in on Oct. 28, 2025, hitting western Jamaica with . The Category 5 hurricane and knocked down power lines, its torrential rainfall generated mudslides and flash flooding, and its storm surge inundated .

Melissa had been wobbling south of the island for days, quickly gaining strength over the , before taking a sharp turn to the northeast that morning.

As a , I work with colleagues at NOAA's to improve predictions of hurricanes' tracks and strengths. Accurate forecasts of Melissa's turn to the northeast gave many people across Jamaica, Cuba and the eastern Bahamas extra time to evacuate to safer areas before the hurricane .

Throughout 2025, most hurricanes similarly , sparing the U.S. mainland. To understand the forces that shaped these storms and their paths, let's take a closer look at Melissa and the 2025 hurricane season.

The origins of Atlantic tropical cyclones

Before they evolve into powerful hurricanes, storm systems start out as jumbled over the open ocean.

Many of 2025's Atlantic tropical cyclones began life far from the U.S. coastline in the warm waters west of Africa, near the Cape Verde islands. These are consistently blown toward the United States, especially during peak hurricane season.

The driving force steering these storms is a hot, semi-permanent high-pressure air mass often found spinning above the Atlantic Ocean known as the .

When this high-pressure system, or , is positioned farther east, closer to the Azores islands, its strong, clockwise-rotating winds typically out to sea toward their demise in the cold North Atlantic. When the high-pressure ridge is closer to the U.S. and centered over Bermuda, it can send storms .

Because that high-pressure system was positioned farther east in summer and fall 2025, many of the season's strongest storms, such as , swung east of the U.S. mainland. Combined with above , most tropical cyclones were steered away from the Atlantic coast.

The clouds that eventually became Hurricane Melissa traveled farther to the south, avoiding the Bermuda high and making their way into the Caribbean Sea.

Tropical cyclones' high-stakes balancing act

After a tropical cyclone forms, its path is guided by the movement of air surrounding it, known as . These steering currents direct the forward movement of storms in the Atlantic at speeds ranging from a to a or more.

Hurricane Melissa's meandering track was determined by these steering currents. At first, the system was caught between winds from high-pressure systems . This setup trapped the storm over the warm Caribbean Sea for days, just to the south of Jamaica.

As a tropical cyclone is steered by outside forces, its internal makeup also constantly evolves, changing how the storm interacts with its steering currents.

When Hurricane Melissa was a weak, lopsided system, it didn't receive much of a push from its upper-level environment. But as the hurricane gained strength from the very warm ocean below, it grew taller. Like a skyscraper reaching high into the air, major hurricanes like Melissa have towering thunderstorms and feel more of a push from than weaker storms do.

Melissa's also became vertically, allowing the tropical cyclone to rapidly intensify from 70 mph to a staggering 140 mph sustained winds in 24 hours.

Eventually, the precarious atmospheric balancing act holding Melissa in place collapsed. A ripple in the jet stream known as an steered the hurricane to the northeast and into the Jamaican coast.

Melissa's snail's pace of about 2 mph was . like Melissa are more common in October, as steering currents are often very weak or pushing in opposite directions, which can trap a tropical cyclone in place. Similar steering currents affected in 2016.

Tragically, stalled tropical cyclones often bring prolonged rainfall, winds, flash flooding and with them. The wind and downpours can be extreme for mountain communities, as their high topography enhances local rainfall that can and , as Jamaica saw from Melissa.

Improving storm track forecasting

Meteorologists generally understand how atmospheric steering currents guide tropical cyclones, yet forecasting these wind patterns . Depending on the atmospheric setup, can be than others, as changes to steering currents can be subtle.

New approaches to hurricane track forecasting include using machine learning models, such as , which many traditional models in forecasting storm tracks this hurricane season. Rather than solving a complex set of equations to make a forecast, DeepMind looks at to infer the path of a current storm.

reconnaissance data can also in predicting tropical cyclone paths. Recent tests show how from within a hurricane can improve forecasts. Certain that Hurricane Hunters and fly through strong hurricanes can also improve predictions of a storm's path.

Scientists and engineers aim to further improve hurricane track and intensity forecasts through and to better inform the public when danger is on the way.

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