SAN JUAN – Tropical Storm Melissa plodded through the central Caribbean early Friday, with forecasters warning it could soon strengthen and brush past Jamaica as a powerful hurricane while unleashing potentially “catastrophic” flash flooding and landslides in southern Haiti.

The slow-moving and erratic storm was expected to drop copious rain on Jamaica and the southern regions of Haiti and the Dominican Republic through the weekend.

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“The rainfall is a huge risk with the storm,” said Michael Brennan, director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. “Rainfall has historically been the biggest cause of loss of life of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Caribbean.”

The slow-moving storm was centered about 150 miles (245 kilometers) southeast of Kingston,

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