#hurricane-melissa

#hurricane-melissa

The image shows an absolutely mammoth hurricane eye, punctuated by a flock of birds circling safely above. Yet as retired meteorologist and National Weather Service science and operations office Rich Grumm told Yale's CC, the scale of the image simply doesn't work - Melissa's eye was reported to be around 10 miles wide. "Based on the scale of the eye, these birds would be larger than football fields," Grumm told CC.

Atrocities continue as Sudan's military retreats from el-Fasher, a town in Darfur that has been under a grueling siege for more than 500 days. Also, Hurricane Melissa makes landfall in Jamaica with catastrophic winds and the potential for widespread flooding and landslides. And, President Vladimir Putin says Russia has a nuclear-powered cruise missile that can't be intercepted by US technology, and that it's been tested successfully and is ready to be deployed. Plus, an ant that can give birth to an entirely different species.

Hurricane Melissa has shut down Jamaica's airports and is disrupting flights through the Caribbean. A map published by FlightRadar at around 8 a.m. ET on Wednesday shows how flights to and from the US are avoiding the hurricane, which is the most powerful ever to hit Jamaica. As the hurricane moved north over Cuba, flights between Florida and the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico were forced to take longer routes around it.

I am overwhelmed by the situation,

Over the next few days, we're going to see countless images coming out of Jamaica and Cuba showing the sheer devastation that Hurricane Melissa has wrought. Trillions of gallons of water will then be moved northward within this weather system as the hurricane continues to lose strength on its approach to Bermuda before eventually moving into the North Atlantic. While all of this is going on in the atmosphere, low pressure will be moving from the Tennessee River Valley into Pennsylvania,

We were stressed about Hurricane Melissa. Authorities told us it would be a Category Five hurricane. They said, "We've never had a hurricane like this before. It's going to wreck the place. Prepare, prepare, prepare." When it finally arrived, it wasn't the worst I've lived through, but it was rough. I sheltered at home with my wife, and the wind and rain were so strong that we couldn't see anything. Outside our window, it was all just white - a white spray of water everywhere.

The federal government is advising Canadians to avoid travelling to certain parts of the Caribbean as Hurricane Melissa rips through the region. The Category 5 storm left dozens dead and widespread destruction across Cuba, Jamaica and Haiti on Wednesday, knocking out power and forcing residents from their homes in inundated towns. Global Affairs Canada (GAC) said in a statement Wednesday that it isn't aware of any Canadians killed in the storm, but it issued updated travel advisories for the region.

A woman was arrested by CHP officers in Dublin after crashing her car, possibly under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and leaving a 1-year-old child behind in the car. The officers found the woman walking along the roadway of I-580, and when they located the car, they found the child inside; the child is reportedly okay. [CHP-Dublin/Facebook] The Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco is going "nomadic" when it leaves its home of one year, the Cube on Montgomery Street, early next year.

The mayor of Black River a town that Jamaica's prime minister called ground zero for Hurricane Melissa has described the monstrous storm surges and devastation the storm has wrought on its residents. Speaking to the Guardian, Richard Solomon recounted the traumatic experience of riding out the Category 5 storm of the century at an emergency operating centre. The entire town of Black River is devastated, he said. And that devastation is so catastrophic that the prime minister classified this area as ground zero.