The storm is expected to bring destructive winds and life-threatening and catastrophic flooding and landslides to Jamaica, forecasters say.

Melissa is the second Atlantic hurricane to make landfall with 185 mph winds. The only other storm to do so was the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935.

It hit near New Hope, Jamaica, with 185 mph winds. It is officially the strongest hurricane to hit the country and one of the strongest to make landfall in the Atlantic basin. It is tied with Dorian in 2019 and 1935’s Labor Day storm, CNN reported.

Jamaica is expected to be in the storm's eyewall, which refers to the band of dense clouds surrounding the eye of the hurricane. The eyewall generally produces the fiercest winds and heaviest rainfall, according to Deanna Hence, a professor of climate, meteorology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.