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Melissa becomes a Hurricane southeast of Jamaica, then rapidly intensifies to a Category 4 storm

By Scott Bachmeier •

1-minute GOES-19 Infrared images with plots of GLM Flash Points, from 1201 UTC on 25 October to 0300 UTC on 26 October [click to play MP4 animation]

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Infrared images (above) showed Tropical Storm Melissa in the Caribbean Sea as it began to rapidly intensify during the afternoon and evening hours on 25 October 2025 — reaching Category 1 intensity at 1800 UTC on 25 October and Category 3 intensity at 0300 UTC on 26 October. A series of convective bursts (exhibiting cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures as cold as -90 to -96C, denoted by darker shades of purple) rotated around the storm center — and GLM Flash Points highlighted intermittent lightning activity within some of those convective bursts. Some semblance of a ragged eye occasionally appeared as Melissa neared and attained Category 3 intensity, but an eye was never well organized in the infrared imagery.

Melissa then reached Category 4 intensity south of Jamaica at 1200 UTC on 26 October — and by that time the eye was well defined in both Infrared and Visible imagery (below). Low-altitude mesovortices were apparent within the eye in the Visible images.

1-minute GOES-19 Infrared images with plots of GLM Flash Points, from 1200 -2100 UTC on 26 October [click to play MP4 animation]


1-minute GOES-19 Visible images with plots of GLM Flash Points, from 1200-2100 UTC on 26 October [click to play MP4 animation]

The eye of Category 4 Melissa was exhibiting a “stadium effect”, with a small surface eye having walls that sloped outward with height (below).

GOES-19 Visible and Infrared images at 2057 UTC on 26 October, with plots of GLM Flash Points [click to enlarge]

Melissa was moving through an environment of relatively light deep-layer wind shear, and was traversing warm water — two factors that favored intensification (below).

GOES-19 Infrared images, with an overlay of contours and streamlines of deep-layer wind shear at 1500 UTC on 26 October

Sea Surface Temperature and Ocean Heat Content, with the track of Melissa ending at 1200 UTC on 26 October

Categories: GLM, GOES-19, Lightning, Tropical cyclones