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Updated every day throughout the hurricane season - “Talking the Tropics With Mike”.
And the tropics are ending the month of October (continues through Nov. 30) with a powerful hurricane as Melissa came ashore about mid-day Tue., Oct. 28th on the southwest coast of Jamaica near New Hope with Black Village taking an extremely hard hit within the violent eastern eyewall of the Cat. 5 hurricane.
- Maximum sustained winds of 185 mph, with gusts >200 mph
- Minimum pressure of 892 millibars (26.34″ of mercury)
- Tied for second strongest Atlantic hurricane in regard to winds
- Tied for third most intense Atlantic hurricane in regard to pressure
- The storm has been a Category 5 hurricane for more than 30 consecutive hours
- Tied with Dorian (2019) and Labor Day (1935) as the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the Atlantic with 185 mph winds
- Melissa is the 3rd Category 5 hurricane of 2025, the second most ever in an Atlantic season behind 4 Cat. 5’s in 2005 (Emily, Katrina, Rita, Wilma)
Melissa was the first Cat. 5 hurricane to make a direct landfall on the island nation & only the 2nd “major” hurricane to hit Jamaica from the south (the other one was in 1912):
And while on the topic of hurricanes... the U.S. has not had a hurricane landfall this season *so far* which - since 1900 - happens only about once every 4-5 years. But Florida did go a record 10 years from 2006-2015 without a single hurricane landfall.
Never has Jacksonville, Florida had an official 90-degree day in Nov. or Dec., so it looks like we’ll end the year with 113 90-degree days just 1 days short of the all-time record of 114 90-degree days in 2011. The average for a year is 82 90-degree days in Jacksonville.
So it’s time to turn the calendars to November:
And since we fall back one hour Sunday (Nov. 2) - sunrise will be at 6:42am, sunset at 5:38pm(!) - keep in mind that residential customers are expected to cut back irrigation to once per week which is very realistic since days are shorter & temps. are much cooler:
