How investing in resilience prepared Jamaica for Hurricane Melissa

High in the lush surrounds of Coopers Hill, in the suburbs of Kingston, a powerful dome spins quietly, sending and receiving signals across the Caribbean. This is Jamaica’s newly installed Doppler weather radar, a system prioritized by the Government to strengthen preparedness for increasingly intense storms. Its installation was supported through $7 million in grant financing from CIF, implemented in partnership with the World Bank.

The radar has transformed how Jamaica monitors approaching storms in a region facing increasingly severe weather. In October 2025, less than a year after becoming operational, it was tested for the first time.

As Hurricane Melissa advanced toward Jamaica, real-time radar observations gave meteorologists a clear picture of how the storm was evolving, including its speed, trajectory, and growing intensity. That information enabled authorities to act early, guiding decisions on evacuations, the deployment of emergency services, and the timely opening of shelters before the storm reached land.

Jamaica’s Minister of Water, Environment and Climate Change, Matthew Samuda, explains that this level of visibility fundamentally changed how the country was able to respond.  

“This investment made a major difference. It’s the first time in about seven years that Jamaica was able to rely on some of its own data capacity to forecast what was going to happen,” he says.

“For ten days before the storm actually made landfall, the Met Service was able to warn Jamaicans that this was coming without having to solely depend on the National Hurricane Center in Florida, and that makes a massive difference when we’re able to give our citizens early warning.”

Watch Minister Matthew Samuda explain why the weather radar was critical to Jamaica's preparedness ahead of Hurricane Melissa

When early warnings matter

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Westmoreland as a Category 5 storm, with sustained winds exceeding 185 miles per hour. Samuda said it was the strongest storm to strike Jamaica in more than a century, with storm surges rising above 13 feet and parts of the interior recording more than 30 inches of rainfall.

The impacts were severe. As Samuda notes, nearly 192,000 buildings were damaged, 146,000 of them severely. More than 50 lives were lost, and economic losses are expected to exceed $10 billion, the minister says.

“The impact has been profound and significant, and it will take a long time for Jamaica to recover. On the fiscal side, we have no doubt that the damage will go above $10 billion, about 30% of our GDP. Our debt level is also set to rise on the back of what we'll have to do to stabilize our economy. So 15 years of fiscal reforms in many ways evaporated in the night. We have a lot of work to do if we're to restore and then recover.” – Hon Matthew Samuda, Minister of Water, Environment and Climate Change, Jamaica

While Hurricane Melissa caused extensive damage, early warnings and preparedness helped reduce the scale of loss compared to what would otherwise have occurred.

“The radar allows you to look inside the cloud so you can see the dynamics that are hanging in the cloud,” says Evan Thompson, Principal Director of the Meteorological Service Jamaica. “It tells us what is happening and how soon it will get into our area. With this tool, we’re not only seeing what’s happening, we’re helping decision-makers act faster and communities prepare earlier.”

A bird’s eye view: Meet engineer Travis Free who takes us to the top of Jamaica’s Doppler Radar

Back in Coopers Hill, the radar provides high-resolution data to a wide range of end users. “We use it for aviation, marine operations, and across Jamaica,” says Rohan Brown, Manager of Weather Services. “It is part of the Caribbean radar mosaic, covering the Western Caribbean.” The system contributes to a national early warning network that benefits the entire population of the country, more than 2.8 million people.

Watching the screen in the radar room, Brown says, “If we can prepare better, we can recover better and be more resilient.”

Watch Rohan Brown explain why Jamaica becoming more resilient makes economic sense
 

From early warning to national action

Today, real-time radar data tracking velocity and intensity is shared with public agencies, aviation authorities, and Jamaican citizens. Quietly scanning the skies, Jamaica’s Doppler radar has become a central pillar of the country’s storm preparedness, strengthening coordination across institutions, improving response times, and enabling better, evidence-based decision-making when severe weather approaches. Delivered through Government leadership and multilateral partnership, the system shows how climate finance can be converted into durable public infrastructure that supports resilience.

As Samuda puts it: 
“We can’t build the same way that we once did. Resilience has to be the central pillar in all of our development plans. That means funding mechanisms like CIF, which have delivered and have a track record of delivery, must be capitalized so countries like Jamaica can build the resilience they absolutely need.”