This late-season surprise behemoth went beyond 'extreme' rapid intensification and now ties Katrina and Andrew as the 10th strongest hurricane ever recorded.

Hurricane Melissa— one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded—is now off Cuba’s eastern coast, after leaving a trail of destruction across the large island and its much smaller neighbor, Jamaica.

Category 5 Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica as the strongest storm — and only Category 5 hurricane — ever recorded in the nation’s history.

Hurricane Melissa was one of the strongest hurricanes on record in the Atlantic. So is that proof that climate change is amplifying hurricanes? The short answer is no.

Hurricane Melissa made landfall Wednesday morning in Cuba as a powerful Category 3 hurricane with winds of 120 mph.

The capitals and exclamation points are warranted. Hurricane Melissa is an extraordinary storm, even among the many massive, fast-growing, devastating cyclones that have been erupting in the Atlantic Ocean in recent years.

Hurricane Melissa hit Cuba on Oct. 29 with strong winds after the Jamaican Prime Minister declared the island a 'disaster area' after the storm made landfall there on Oct. 28.

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.