Melissa upgraded to Category 4 hurricane, but impact to NC appears unlikely
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- Melissa intensified to Category 1 and sits southeast of Jamaica, NHC reports.
- NHC expects Melissa to become a major hurricane and impact Greater Antilles.
- Meteorologists say an upper-level trough is expected to steer Melissa away from N.C.
With maximum wind speeds near 140 mph, Melissa has been upgraded to a Category 4 hurricane, but it could escalate to a Category 5 system, the National Hurricane Center forecasted Sunday morning .
Melissa is the fifth system in the 2025 hurricane season. Its center is 110 miles south of Kingston, Jamaica, and 280 miles south-southwest of Guantanamo, Cuba. The NHC has issued a hurricane warning for Jamaica and a hurricane watch for portions of Haiti and Cuba.
Forecasters expect Melissa to make landfall Monday night or Tuesday morning, bringing life-threatening flooding and landslides to parts of Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Forecast for Hurricane Melissa — will it hit NC?
Melissa is expected to move slowly westward through the rest of Sunday, then turn to the north and northeast Monday, according to the NHC. The center of the hurricane is expected to pass near or over Jamaica on Tuesday, then move across southeastern Cuba that night and the southeastern Bahamas on Wednesday.
But as of now, Melissa is unlikely to trouble the U.S. East Coast and North Carolina, according to Phil Badgett, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Raleigh.
As Melissa takes a northward turn in the middle of the week, an upper-level trough — an area of low pressure in the atmosphere — is expected to deflect the hurricane away from the East Coast like a “protective wall,” Badgett said. That could bring wind and rain to North Carolina, but not from Melissa.
Hurricane season 2025
Atlantic hurricane season continues through Nov. 30.
Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 13 to 18 named storms and up to nine hurricanes — including two to five major hurricanes — to form this season, an above-normal level of activity.
So far, there have been five hurricanes: Erin, Gabrielle, Humberto, Imelda and Melissa.
This story was originally published October 25, 2025 at 6:47 PM with the headline "Melissa upgraded to Category 4 hurricane, but impact to NC appears unlikely."
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