AccuWeather forecasters are warning that the western Caribbean could face extreme impacts from Tropical Storm Melissa as the storm will barely move for nearly a week.

Santo Domingo

Tropical storm Melissa is intensifying as it moves westward across the Caribbean, with reports of flooding already emerging in Puerto Rico. The storm is expected to slow significantly, leading to prolonged heavy rainfall in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica. Forecasts indicate that areas such as Santo Domingo could receive 8 to 12 inches of rain, while southern Haiti may see up to 18 inches, with some local areas potentially reaching 30 inches due to the region's high elevations. Wind gusts in Kingston, Jamaica, could reach 80 to 100 miles per hour, raising concerns about widespread flooding and long-term impacts across the region. The storm has been rated a level four on the real impact scale for Haiti, southwestern Dominican Republic, and eastern Jamaica, indicating a major threat of flooding and associated hazards.

Tropical Storm Melissa expected to stall, potentially deadly

So we're looking at tropical storm Melissa. Melissa is strengthening, and we've already seen a few flood reports, even in Puerto Rico, well to the east of the storm from last night. Couple of cases with flooding along Roads 1010 last night. There you can see in some spots, southwestern parts of Puerto Rico there as well. This is off to the west of Salinas and Santa Isabel, and south of Mayaguez. Now, as we take a look at the rain right now, this is the footprint of the rain. Very heavy rain in eastern parts of Santo Domingo, and we're gonna see an increasing problem into Haiti. So Haiti there, the west side of the Dominican Republic, and or the west side of Hispaniola and the Dominican Republic is the east side there. And we have huge concerns about the flooding there in Hispaniola and into Jamaica eventually. So let's get into it. Here we have the latest on Melissa, moving west at 15 miles per hour. That westward movement is pretty swift right now. It's not gonna continue at that pace though for long. So our concern is that it's gonna really slow as it moves farther west and northwest. There is some wind shear keeping it in check right now. We'll look at that in a little bit with the forecast feed at 45 minutes after the hour. But you'll notice the 15 mile per hour westward movement is not gonna be the case long. From 8 p.m. Thursday to 8 p.m. Monday, we're forecasting almost, well, I don't wanna say no, but very limited movement here over multiple days. And the whole time, strong flow from the south is gonna drive flooding rainfall into parts of Haiti. We are looking at gusts of wind 80 to 100 miles per hour in Kingston, Jamaica. Look at the DR. They've already seen some very heavy rain in Santo Domingo today from this system. And Santo Domingo, likely to see 8 to 12 inches of rain. But much of southern parts of Haiti could see 12 to 18 inches of rain. With Iraq, you have the local storm max of up to 30 inches of rain. We have some tremendously high elevations here in Haiti. Some elevations, the highest in the nation is 8,700 feet. That's way, way higher. That's 2,500 feet higher than Mount Washington, New Hampshire. So huge problems. This storm will have an accumulative real impact scale rating of four for Haiti, the southwestern Dominican Republic, and parts of at least eastern Jamaica. Long-term flooding problems here. This could be a major problem.

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