If you read this newsletter a week ago, then you were well aware of the likelihood that Melissa would explosively develop into a Category 5 Hurricane. From a “forecast skill horizon” point of view, at least a 7-day notice was available for a powerful / major hurricane in the Caribbean — assuming you didn’t bother with the very unreliable NOAA GFS model. What an embarrassment for the United States — thank goodness we have ECMWF and the historical reanalysis (ERA5) for GraphCast training from Google —> very impressive. Combining HCCA, ECMWF Ensembles, and Google Deep Mind = essential toolbox for Melissa —> “the answer keys”

Hurricane Melissa is near the apex of tropical cyclone intensity scale when viewed from a satellite perspective. The Automated Dvorak Technique (ADT) has pinged at T 7.7 to T 8.3 over the past 12-18 hours with a very warm eye > 20°C and convection surrounding it colder than -80°C in an axisymmetric ring.