Where does Cat 5 Hurricane Melissa rank among the strongest storms ever?
Hurricanes are measured many ways: death toll, in buildings destroyed, billions of dollars in damage or days of power outages.
But even before any of those likely horrifying figures are known for Hurricane Melissa, it’s already one for the record books.
Right before landfall, the National Hurricane Center clocked Category 5 Melissa at 185 mph sustained winds and a barometric pressure of 892 millibars — that last figure officially making it the third-strongest storm ever recorded in the Atlantic.
Low pressure is the main metric that hurricane scientists use to understand how powerful a storm is. The lower it is inside the storm, the stronger the hurricane and the more intense its winds are.
The strongest Atlantic storm on record was 2005’s Hurricane Wilma, with an all-time-low pressure of 882 mb. It hit that peak at sea while it was a Category 5. But it made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 and dealt a crushing blow to a large swath of the state.
Next in line is Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, which reached 888 mb before landfall in Mexico. Gilbert was the strongest storm to ever hit Jamaica, but it hit its peak strength out at sea. It made landfall as a Category 4 at 960 mb and crossed the island as a Category 3.
Hurricane Melissa is tied for third place with one of the most devastating storms of all time, the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, which killed more than 400 people and obliterated Islamorada and most of the middle Keys. The storm made landfall in the Florida Keys at its lowest pressure — 892 mb.
For hurricanes, pressure and wind speed often go hand in hand. The strongest hurricane by sustained wind speed was 1980’s Hurricane Allen with 190 mph winds.
The next chunk of the record book is the 185 mph club, populated by 2019’s Hurricane Dorian, Wilma, Gilbert, the Labor Day Hurricane — and now, Melissa.
This story was originally published October 28, 2025 at 10:55 AM.
