The warming of the world’s oceans caused by climate change helped double Hurricane Melissa ‘s wind speed in less than 24 hours over the weekend, climate scientists said Monday.

Hurricane Melissa is currently a Category 5 storm, the highest category, with sustained wind speeds of over 157 mph (252 kph). Melissa is forecast to make landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday before crossing Cuba and the Bahamas through Wednesday.

Scientists said this is the fourth storm in the Atlantic this year to undergo rapid intensification of its wind speed and power.

“That part of the Atlantic is extremely warm right now — around 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), which is 2 to 3 degrees Celsius above normal,” said Akshay Deoras, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, in the United Kingdom. “And it’s not just the surface. The deeper layers of the ocean are also unusually warm, providing a vast reservoir of energy for the storm.”

Deoras, who has tracked the impact of climate change on weather phenomena for decades, said scientists are seeing storms intensify quickly.

“Climate change is fundamentally changing our weather. It does not mean that every single tropical cyclone is going to go through rapid or super-rapid intensification. However, in our warmer world, it will continue to increase the likelihood of storms going through rapid and super-rapid intensification,” said Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist at Climate Central, an independent group of scientists and communicators.

Storms More Likely to Intensify

A 2023 study had found that Atlantic hurricanes are now more than twice as likely as before to intensify rapidly from minor storms to powerful and catastrophic events. The study looked at 830 Atlantic tropical cyclones since 1971. It found that in the last 20 years, 8.1% of storms powered from a Category 1 minor storm to a major hurricane in just 24 hours. That happened only 3.2% of the time from 1971 to 1990, according to a study in the journal Scientific Reports.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center has warned of “ catastrophic flash flooding and numerous landslides ” from Melissa in Jamaica, where some areas could receive up to 40 inches (1 meter) of rain. The storm has already killed at least four people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Read the full article about climate change worsening Hurricane Melissa at WTOP.