CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Melissa is continuing to move slowly along its westward path as a Category 4 hurricane and is expected to make landfall in Jamaica late Sunday night.
The National Weather Service says Hurricane Melissa quickly developed from a tropical storm into a major hurricane within a span of about nine hours.
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Live 5 First Alert Meteorologist Lexi Horvath said Melissa is expected to strengthen further into a Category 5 hurricane sometime Sunday night through early Monday morning.
Melissa is dumping enough rain to cause the risk of life-threatening and catastrophic flash flooding and landslides for parts of Southern Hispaniola and Jamaica into early next week.
As of 11 a.m. on Sunday, the center of Hurricane Melissa was located near latitude 16.4 north, longitude 76.6 west. Melissa is moving toward the west at near 3 mph.
A slow westward motion is expected through the end of the weekend. A turn to the north and northeast is forecast on Monday and Tuesday.
On the forecast track, the center of Melissa is expected to move near or over Jamaica during the weekend and early next week, and it could be near or over eastern Cuba by the middle of next week.
Satellite images showed that maximum sustained winds rapidly increased to near 140 mph with higher gusts. Melissa is a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
Continued rapid intensification is forecast through Sunday night, followed by fluctuations in intensity. Melissa is expected to be a major hurricane when making landfall in Jamaica early next week.
Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 25 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 175 miles.
The minimum central pressure reported by the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft is 953 mb or 28.15 inches.
As of Saturday night, a hurricane warning is in effect for Jamaica. A hurricane watch is in effect for the southwestern peninsula of Haiti from the border with the Dominican Republic to Port-Au-Prince. A tropical storm warning is in effect for the southwestern peninsula of Haiti from the border with the Dominican Republic to Port-Au-Prince.
Melissa, the season's 13th named storm, formed Tuesday morning over the Caribbean Sea. It became a hurricane as of 2 p.m. on Saturday afternoon with 70-mph winds. By 5 p.m., winds had increased to 90 mph and the storm had become a Category 2 storm with the 8 p.m. advisory.