Category 5 Hurricane Melissa’s eye is nearing Jamaica and conditions are worsening

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• Strongest storm this year: Melissa underwent extreme rapid intensification, strengthening to a rare Category 5 with winds of 175 mph and stronger gusts, making it the strongest storm on the planet this year.

• Conditions worsening: The storms outer bands are lashing Jamaica with tropical-storm force winds. Hurricane conditions will arrive later this morning before landfall by early afternoon.

• Jamaica’s worst storm: The island nation hasn’t taken a direct hit from a hurricane in over a decade and never from a Category 5, with a UN agency describing it as the “storm of the century”. Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for Jamaica’s vulnerable coastal areas.

• Already deadly: Melissa is responsible for seven deaths – three in Jamaica preparing for the storm, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic. The storm threatens to devastate Jamaica’s infrastructure and cut off communities in Jamaica....read more