THIS is the moment a US Air Force crew punched straight through the heart of Hurricane Melissa — and found eerie stillness inside the monster storm’s deadly core.
Cockpit footage from the “Teal 74” reconnaissance mission shows a jaw-dropping scene few humans ever witness: towering walls of cloud, rising like cliffs into the sky, circling a perfectly clear and blue calm.
The video opens with the WC-130J’s propeller slicing through white fury, the hurricane’s wall looming like a vast fortress.
Seconds later, chaos turns into silence as the storm’s eye is calm, still, and surreal.
It stretches for miles, with sunlight flooding the circular space like a sky-made stadium.
Then, as the aircraft banks, the scale of the beast becomes clear as walls of dense cloud curve skyward in every direction, a calm void surrounded by destruction.
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“This is as clear of an eye as you will see in the Atlantic basin,” said a crewmember from the mission, captured on video as Hurricane Melissa roared toward Category 5 strength.
Within hours, Melissa exploded into a 175mph monster — now the Atlantic’s strongest storm of 2025 — bearing down on Jamaica in what could become the island’s most devastating hurricane in history.
Meteorologists warn that Melissa, crawling westward at just 3mph, will dump up to 40 inches of rain on parts of Jamaica.
It is set to trigger “catastrophic and life-threatening flash flooding and numerous landslides,” according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Desmond McKenzie, Jamaica’s minister of local government, said: “Many of these communities will not survive this flooding.
“Kingston is low, extremely low… No community in Kingston is immune from flooding.”
Mandatory evacuations are underway across coastal regions, and Prime Minister Andrew Holness has urged citizens to act fast.
He said: “Now is the time to secure your home, check your roof, windows, and surroundings… If you live in a flood-prone area, take protective measures and have an evacuation plan ready.”
Melissa’s slow grind and explosive power have stunned experts — its winds doubling in just two days as it churned across the hot Caribbean.
At 130 miles south of Kingston late Sunday, the hurricane’s eye was locked on Jamaica’s southern coast, with forecasters predicting landfall early Tuesday.
The government has shut airports, opened emergency shelters, and placed hospitals in emergency mode.
For now, storm chasers aboard “Teal 74” are among the few to have glimpsed the calm within the chaos.
Recon missions like theirs provide real-time pressure and wind data that can improve forecast accuracy by up to 20 per cent, according to peer-reviewed studies in the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences.
And on the ground, the tension is just as thick.
Along Kingston’s waterfront, fishermen and shopkeepers lashed down boats and shutters as the first bands of rain swept in.
“She wants to come stay, visit Jamaica for three days, why?” said fisherman Clive Davis, shaking his head at the darkening horizon.
“We can’t fight against nature, right?”
