Sustained winds have started to lash the Jamaican coastpublished at 06:59 GMT 28 October

06:59 GMT 28 October

Will Grant
Mexico, Central America and Cuba correspondent

Image source, Reuters

For days, Jamaicans have waited and prepared for Hurricane Melissa’s arrival as satellite images have shown the vast storm strengthening and slowly bearing down on the island.

Now, the islanders are beginning to feel the full brunt of what is predicted to be the most powerful hurricane to hit Jamaica on record.

Sustained winds with speeds of up to 270kmph (168mph) have started to lash the Jamaican coast.

The fear is that as much as 102 centimetres of rain could be dumped on Jamaica within a matter of hours, leading to flash flooding, rivers bursting their banks and mudslides.

In the final hours ahead of the storm, the Jamaican government imposed a mandatory evacuation order on several areas including the coastal town of Port Royal.

Thousands of residents have taken refuge in government storm shelters but some have expressed reluctance to leave their homes.

Such is the ferocity of this slow-moving storm, more remote communities are in real danger of being completely cut off.

Image source, Reuters

The airport has been closed and international aid agencies like the UN World Food Programme are already co-ordinating with the Jamaican government – which says it has an emergency response budget of £25m ($33m).

Several people have been killed elsewhere in the Caribbean and at least three have already died in Jamaica during the storm’s approach.

While there is expected to widespread damage to infrastructure, the island’s authorities now just hope they have done enough - and that enough people have heeded the official warnings - to avoid any further loss of life.

Nick Davis
Reporting from Jamaica

Many people have been evacuated from vulnerable areas in Kingston, ordered to do so by the government.

A Jamaican's house is more than their castle, and until the evacuation order was made, many preferred to ride out the storm at home.

But as another Instagram post stated: "I can't wait till we get back to precedented times" - with no more record storm surges, no more extensive island-wide flooding, and no hurricane speeds that make a hypercar blush.

In contrast, the slow speed of Melissa's approach has made for the most anxiety-ridden few days I've had in a while.

There are questions of will-it, won't-it make landfall; where will it turn; how long will I have internet; what's going to be left of my business?

The BBC's lead weather presenter Elizabeth Rizzini talks us through Hurricane Melissa's trajectory and strength in this one minute video:

Nick Davis
Reporting from Jamaica

A few days ago I joked with a former colleague that I was regretting my choice of living in an old Edwardian house here in Kingston, Jamaica.

The building was converted into flats decades ago and its old bones have seen their fair share of storms - but probably not one like this.

Outside my window is a century palm, a majestic 50-year-old tree taller than my building. My hope is that in the next few days it'll still be here.

Someone I follow on Instagram shared that he was driving around to take mental snapshots of the city, because the capital likely won't look the same for a while after this storm.

The BBC has journalists all over the world, but often they're "parachuted in" to gather the snippets and factoids to then transform into the record of events. Journalists say we should never "be the story", but this time my life and my family and friends are the top line, because Hurricane Melissa is a threat to our lives here.

I'd like to dedicate this first live page dispatch to my cousin Andrew, who works for the power company, away from his girls, to make sure the infrastructure we need is in place when we need it.

Meteorologist and storm chaser Matthew Cappucci tells the BBC that Melissa, a category five hurricane, will be the strongest to hit Jamaica since records began.

He talks about Hurricane Gilbert, which killed dozens of people in Jamaica in 1988, and he says it was a category three when it made landfall.

Melissa "could be an order of magnitude more significant", because hurricane strength doesn't go up linearly - it goes up exponentially.

"Nobody in Jamaica has lived through anything comparable to what they're going to get," Cappucci says.

He adds that while category five storms do occur, they tend not to reach land.

"It is extremely rare to get a category five with impact anywhere on Earth."

Jamaica’s prime minister, Andrew Holness, has ordered a mandatory evacuation of low lying areas as the island prepares for Hurricane Melissa to make landfall.

Shelter orders are also in place in the country, and all public schools have been moved online.

The two international airports, Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston and Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, have also shuttered, suspending all operations over the weekend.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

Hurricane Melissa will bring "catastrophic and life-threatening flash flooding" to Jamaica, says the National Hurricane Center., external

The US-based group expects between 15 and 30 inches of rainfall to hit Jamaica, with extensive rain in Cuba and the south-eastern Bahamas, bringing "numerous landslides".

As the hurricane hits Jamaica, destructive winds of up to 130 mph (209 km/h) are expected to cause power cuts and isolate communities.

Storm surges of up to 13 feet, external above ground level are also likely with smaller surges in south-east Cuba.

It's a similar story in Haiti, Dominican Republic and south-eastern Bahamas, with the hurricane centre warning of life-threatening flash flooding and landslides.

The Jamaican government has done everything it can to prepare for a storm "the likes of which we have never seen", the country's Information Minister, Dana Morris Dixon, told Shaun Ley on BBC's Newshour.

With up to 40 inches of rain possible in parts of the island nation, Dixon says those are "numbers we've never seen in Jamaica in terms of rainfall".

And on top of that, Dixon added, October is already the country's rainy month.

"The ground is already very saturated. And then to take that much rain means we're going to have flooding, extensive flooding and landslides in the mountainous areas."

She said the last hurricane to directly hit Jamaica was 37 years ago, and urged people to take this one seriously.

Jamaica has 881 active shelters, and all of them are free, she added.

Image source, Reuters

Jamaica is bracing for the world's strongest storm this year - and possibly the strongest on record for the island nation - as US meteorologists warn of "catastrophic and life-threatening" conditions.

Hurricane Melissa, which is expected to make landfall early on Tuesday, has already been blamed for three "storm-related deaths" on the Caribbean island, as well as four deaths in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

With wind speeds of up to 175mph (282km/h), Melissa is a category five storm - the maximum strength. And it's intensifying.

Experts warn the hurricane's slow pace may mean prolonged torrential rain in some areas, increasing the risk of deadly flooding and landslides.

Stay with us as we bring you live updates.