Melissa hit Caribbean as Category 5 storm in October 2025.
ByNatalie Dreier, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
Hurricane Melissa retired FILE: A NOAA satellite image of Category 5 Hurricane Melissa south of Jamaica. Melissa has been retired from the list of hurricane names. (NOAA/Via WMO)
ByNatalie Dreier, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
A committee agreed to retire the name after Hurricane Melissa hit the Caribbean in October 2025 as a Category 5, USA Today reported.
“At its peak, Melissa was classified as a category 5 storm based on the Saffir Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, with life-threatening winds reaching around 300 km/h. The storm produced devastating storm surge and damaging winds across Jamaica and Cuba and brought extreme rainfall and flooding to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba,” the organization said.
Hurricane Melissa was the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in Jamaica. and more than 90 people died in Jamaica, Haiti and the other islands in the region.
“After more than four months since the passage of Melissa over Jamaica, stories about the impacts and recovery continue to dominate the news and media. Melissa has now been engraved in the collective memory of the nation,” Evan Thompson said.
He is the principal director at the Meteorological Service, Jamaica and President of the group’s Regional Association IV.
The agency replaced Melissa with Molly for the 2031 season and Melissa now joins the ranks of other storms such as Katrina, Matthew, Irma and Beryl among dozens of others, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Click here to see the entire list of retired names and when they were removed.
The lists of names are on a six-year rotation, each reused unless a storm is so devastating that it is retired, the NHC said.
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In this September 1900 file photo, a large part of the city of Galveston, Texas, is reduced to rubble after being hit by a surprise hurricane Sept. 8, 1900. (AP Photo/File)
