A damaging hurricane in a warmer world
The value of considering historical extreme storms
As Hurricane Melissa approaches Jamaica (October 2025) as a category 4 or 5 storm, we briefly examine a previous hurricane which hit the Caribbean island.
In August 1903 a category 3 hurricane made landfall and caused significant damage to Jamaica. This storm was reconstructed as part of an improved historical reanalysis of the year 1903, which included a parallel experiment with warmer sea surface temperatures.
This ‘counter-factual’ was designed to represent the same weather of 1903 but in a warmer climate. It has already been used to show how an extra-tropical storm would have been more damaging. But what about a hurricane?
The figure below shows the simulated precipitable water fields for the two experiments during landfall on Jamaica. The left shows the climate of 1903, and the right shows a +2K warmer world. The darker blues in the warmer world show greater potential for heavy rainfall.
It is therefore likely that had the same 1903 storm occurred in a warmer world like today then the already intense rainfall would have been even heavier.
This example highlights the value of considering real events from the past, and how translating them into a modern or future warmer climate can give us useful insights into how extreme weather will now cause more damage even if the synoptic events are the same.
A scale for the rainfall, for the two figures, would be helpful to me, and to others, to grasp the scope of the difference between the two.
This will be very interesting to see how it plays out in real-time. I hope the people of the Caribbean area are prepared. Looking forward to follow-up. Thanks Ed!