Melissa is among three Atlantic hurricanes to make landfall with 185 mph winds. Another storm to do so was the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935.

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.

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica as a Category 5 storm with wind speeds of up to 185 miles per hour.

Category 5 Hurricane Melissa has made landfall already in Jamaica and Cuba, as one of the strongest hurricanes to ever make landfall.

The storm, which is set to make landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday, has stunned meteorologists with its intensity and the speed at which it built.

Hurricane Melissa followed what has unfortunately become a pattern for major storms: It formed late in the season, intensified rapidly, then stalled near the coast.

Hurricane Melissa’s powerful winds and drenching rains devastated Jamaica. But is its wrath a sign that we need a new designation for monster storms?

Josh Wurman and Karen Kosiba, the researchers inside the mobile radar unit, noted the average wind inside the hurricane’s eyewall was between 90 and 100 mph; it ramped up to 145 mph during the passage of at least one of these whirls.