A US Air Force aircraft was flown into Hurricane Melissa to shoot some footage inside the eye of the storm which ranks as the strongest cyclone of the year to date.
The Air Force performed the flight with its team of the so-called Hurricane Hunters to gather weather information to the National Hurricane Centre when the Category 5 storm was approaching Jamaica.
USAF ‘Hurricane Hunters’ Fly Into Eye of the Storm
The aircraft landed in the centre of the storm in the southeastern part of it just after sunrise. The plane was enclosed by thick grey clouds and very little light penetrated through. Before them was the huge eye wall, curved in a broad circle and on the north west side a bright band of sunshine showed just where the sun was coming out of the storm.
Stunning footage from a plane inside Hurricane Melissa’s eye shows the stadium effect
— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) October 28, 2025
Speaking to X, the USAF Hurricane Hunter aircraft responded that, “We are flying in on the southeast, just after the sunrise, and the bright arc on the far northwest eye wall, is the light only just to be making it over the top behind us.
The video featured the so-called stadium effect, whereby the walls of the hurricane bend outward as it ascends, forming a massive and arena-like structure of the view as seen within the eye. Nice swirl of clouds going on, they wrote on X.
In another video, there was lightning that was seen up the eye wall. It was a little rotation of clouds at the center of which on the other side of the eye revealed the waves breaking in all directions. The post explained that the sea surface is invariably fascinating to the eye, and there the waves are going in different directions.
Strongest Cyclone of 2025 Heads Toward Jamaica
Hurricane Melissa is the most intense hurricane that has ever hit Jamaica since the records have been kept since 1851, according to the National Hurricane center. Travelling at about 6 8 km/h, Melissa will make landfall on Jamaica at the beginning of Tuesday causing harmful storm surges of up to 13 feet and over 40 inches of rainfall in places.
Jamaica has established over 800 shelters and evacuations in areas below sea level as the island plans in case of dreadful floods, landslides and power outage. More than 50,000 houses had already been left without power by Monday night.
There are at least seven victims who have been killed in the Caribbean, including Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
