CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A storm chaser from Massachusetts got a rare and dramatic look inside Hurricane Melissa after flying directly into the Category 5 storm’s eye.
Matthew Cappucci, a senior meteorologist with MyRadar, joined a NOAA Hurricane Hunters flight on Sunday night to gather data from inside the powerful system threatening Jamaica.
Cappucci told Boston 25 News that the experience was surreal and intense, comparing the flight to being inside a “washing machine or car wash” due to the near-zero visibility.
Once inside the eye, however, the scene changed dramatically.
“Being in the center of this buzz saw in the atmosphere and knowing the hellacious conditions on all sides are whipping around you, and yet you’re this little oasis of calm that you’ll only have for a few moments,” Cappucci said. “It was simultaneously peaceful, mesmerizing, beautiful, and also destructive — just heart-sinking to know what’s going to hit Jamaica.”
Cappucci warned that Hurricane Melissa could bring devastating impacts to Jamaica, including washed-out communities, tornado-like damage spanning 30 to 40 miles, and communication outages that could last for weeks.
Melissa was set to make landfall Tuesday, threatening to pummel Jamaica as the strongest to lash the island since recordkeeping began 174 years ago.
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