Eric Holthaus

‘The Stuff of Nightmares’: Jamaica Braces for Catastrophic Landfall as Hurricane Melissa Horrifies Experts

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Hurricane Melissa churning northwest through the Caribbean on October 27, 2025. (Photo by NOAA via Getty Images)

“Unimaginable violence is hiding in the very small and compact eyewall of Melissa,” said one hurricane specialist.

Hurricane Melissa barreled toward Jamaica on Tuesday as a monstrous Category 5 storm as the island country braced for devastating landfall, humanitarian operations urgently mobilized, and experts voiced horror at the latest climate-fueled weather disaster.

Anne-Claire Fontan, the World Meteorological Organization’s tropical cyclone specialist, told reporters that “a catastrophic situation is expected in Jamaica” and described the hurricane as “the storm of the century” for the island. Melissa is expected to make landfall imminently, bringing extreme flooding, landslides, and other life-threatening impacts.

Tens of thousands of Jamaicans lost power as the slow-moving storm approached the island, bringing torrential rain and maximum sustained winds of 185 mph, with gusts over 220 mph. Storms like Melissa are the reason scientists are pushing to formally add a Category 6 for hurricanes.

“Unimaginable violence is hiding in the very small and compact eyewall of Melissa,” said Greg Postel, hurricane specialist at The Weather Channel. “Nearly continuous lightning will accompany the tornadic wind speeds.”

The International Federation of the Red Cross said up to 1.5 million people in Jamaica—roughly half the island’s population—are expected to be directly affected by Hurricane Melissa, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin and the strongest storm on Earth this year.

“We are okay at the moment but bracing ourselves for the worst,” Jamaican climate activist Tracey Edwards said Tuesday. “I’ve grown weary of these threats, and I do not want to face the next hurricane.”

The International Organization for Migration warned that “the risk of flooding, landslides, and widespread damage is extremely high,” meaning that “many people are likely to be displaced from their homes and in urgent need of shelter and relief.”

Melissa’s landfall will come on the same day that United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the international community has failed to prevent planetary warming from surpassing the key 1.5°C threshold “in the next few years.”

Meteorologist Eric Holthaus wrote on social media that “this is the news I’ve dreaded all my life.”

“Humanity has failed to avoid dangerous climate change,” he wrote. “We have now entered the overshoot era. Our new goal is to prevent as many irreversible tipping points from taking hold as we can.”

Hurricane Melissa will make landfall in Jamaica in a few hours as one of the two strongest hurricanes ever to make landfall anywhere in the Atlantic Basin — on par with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane in south Florida.Just horrific. The stuff of nightmares.

— Eric Holthaus (@ericholthaus.com) 2025-10-28T13:48:48.360Z

Climate experts said Hurricane Melissa bears unmistakable fingerprints of the planetary crisis, which is driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.

The warming climate is “clearly making this horrific disaster for Jamaica, Cuba, and the Bahamas even worse,” Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, told the New York Times.

Akshay Deoras, a meteorologist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, told the Associated Press that the Atlantic “is extremely warm right now.”

“And it’s not just the surface,” said Deoras. “The deeper layers of the ocean are also unusually warm, providing a vast reservoir of energy for the storm.”

Amira Odeh, Caribbean campaigner at 350.org, warned in a statement Tuesday that “what is happening in Jamaica is what climate injustice looks like.”

“Every home without electricity, every flooded hospital, every family cut off by the storm is a consequence of political inaction,” said Odeh. “We cannot continue losing Caribbean lives because of the fossil fuel industry’s greed.”

“As world leaders head to COP30, they must understand that every delay, every new fossil fuel project, means more lives lost,” Odeh added. “Jamaica is the latest warning, and Belém must be where we finally see a steer to change courses. The Caribbean is sounding the alarm once again. This time, the world must listen.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.

Continue Reading‘The Stuff of Nightmares’: Jamaica Braces for Catastrophic Landfall as Hurricane Melissa Horrifies Experts

‘These Deaths Are on Trump’s Hands’: Texas Flooding Spotlights Assault on Climate Science

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Kerrville residents document the aftermath of deadly flooding at Louise Hays Park near the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas on July 6, 2025.
 (Photo: Jorge Salgado/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“The Trump regime is gutting scientific research into climate and atmospheric science for political reasons, at the very time we need a much better understanding of it,” said one environmentalist. “This is so reckless and dangerous.”

Deadly flooding caused by torrential rain in central Texas late last week called attention to U.S. President Donald Trump’s full-scale assault on the climate research and monitoring agencies tasked with studying and predicting such weather catastrophes, as well as his ongoing attacks on disaster preparedness and relief.

Though local National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters did issue warnings in the lead-up to Friday’s flooding—which killed at least 82 people, including dozens of children—key roles were reportedly vacant ahead of the downpour, prompting scrutiny of the Trump administration’s mass firings and budget cuts, in addition to years of neglect and failures by Republicans at the state level.

Asked whether he believes the federal government should hire back terminated meteorologists in the wake of the Texas flooding, Trump responded in the negative and falsely claimed that “very talented people” at NWS “didn’t see” the disaster coming.

“This is an absolute lie,” replied meteorologist and climate journalist Eric Holthaus. “Worse, this is the person responsible for making those kids less safe and he’s trying to deny the damage he caused.”

Holthaus wrote Sunday that Trump’s staffing cuts “have particularly hit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Environmental Modeling Center, which aims to improve the skill of these types of difficult forecasts.”

“Though it’s unclear to what extent staffing shortages across the NWS complicated the advance notice that local officials had of an impending flooding disaster,” he added, “it’s clear that this was a complex, compound tragedy of a type that climate warming is making more frequent.”

“Republicans have fired meteorologists, cut emergency disaster aid, and given an extra $18 billion to the fossil fuel corporations causing this crisis.”

Under the guise of “government efficiency,” the Trump administration has taken an axe to staff at federal climate agencies and is trying to go even further with its budget for the coming fiscal year. The Washington Post noted Sunday that “a budget document the Trump administration recently submitted to Congress calls for zeroing out climate research funding for 2026, something officials had hinted at in previous proposals but is now in lawmakers’ hands.”

“But even just the specter of President Donald Trump’s budget proposals has prompted scientists to limit research activities in advance of further cuts,” the Post noted. “Trump’s efforts to freeze climate research spending and slash the government’s scientific workforce have for months prompted warnings of rippling consequences in years ahead. For many climate scientists, the consequences are already here.”

Since the start of his second term, Trump has dismissed the hundreds of scientists and experts who were working on the National Climate Assessment, moved to slash NOAA’s workforce, and announced a halt to climate disaster tracking, among other changes—all while working to accelerate fossil fuel extraction and use that is supercharging extreme weather events. One NOAA veteran warned that Trump’s cuts could drag the agency back to “the technical and proficiency levels we had in the 1950s.”

“The Trump regime is gutting scientific research into climate and atmospheric science for political reasons, at the very time we need a much better understanding of it,” environmentalist Stephen Barlow wrote on social media on Sunday. “This is so reckless and dangerous, which is why I suggest we call these tragedies Trump events.”

Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, said over the weekend that “Republicans have fired meteorologists, cut emergency disaster aid, and given an extra $18 billion to the fossil fuel corporations causing this crisis.”

“These deaths are on Trump’s hands,” she added.

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.

Continue Reading‘These Deaths Are on Trump’s Hands’: Texas Flooding Spotlights Assault on Climate Science