Updated Saturday, 10 a.m. ET Tropical Storm Melissa is organizing while it sits over the Caribbean southeast of Jamaica. The hostile upper-level winds that have been holding it back have let up enough that a partial eyewall has formed. Melissa will likely intensify into a hurricane in a matter of hours. Once the storm has its structure in place, rapid intensification is forecast over the near-record warm water.

If Melissa goes down the middle of the National Hurricane Center cone and intensifies as forecast, catastrophic damage is likely in Jamaica from feet of torrential rain and Category 4 or 5 winds. The assault will last more than two days – which is hard to imagine.

Landfall is still about 2 1/2 days away – so the forecast track can still shift, of course. But any reasonable alterna

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