WeatherNext AI Forecasting and Jamaica's Response to Hurricane Melissa

In October 2025, Google DeepMind's WeatherNext AI model gave the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) — and, through it, Jamaica's Meteorological Service and the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) — a five-day-advance, 80%-confidence prediction that Hurricane Melissa would explosively intensify from Category 1 to Category 5 and make landfall in Jamaica. Confidence in that forecast rose to near 100% three days before landfall, the first time NHC's process had projected an intensity jump of that magnitude so far in advance. Melissa struck Jamaica at New Hope on 28 October 2025 with 185 mph winds, the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall on the island.

Jamaica's Meteorological Service and ODPEM used the extended NHC warning, built on WeatherNext's guidance, to inform earlier evacuation orders and resource mobilisation ahead of landfall. NHC forecasters combined the AI model's output with traditional physics-based models and expert judgement rather than relying on it alone.

In NHC's 2025 season verification report, WeatherNext was rated the single best-performing model for both track and intensity, with NOAA hurricane specialist James Franklin calling its guidance 'the best guidance we saw this year.' Evan Thompson, Principal Director of the Meteorological Service of Jamaica, credited the extended lead time with allowing earlier evacuation orders and resource mobilisation. Despite this, Jamaica's death toll from Melissa reached at least 32 (67 across the storm's full track through Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank estimated physical damage to Jamaica at US$8.8 billion, about 41% of the country's 2024 GDP and the costliest hurricane in the island's recorded history.

The case illustrates AI forecasting's genuine decision-support value — unprecedented lead time for evacuation planning — alongside its limits: superior prediction did not equate to disaster prevention. NPR reporting notes that AI models like WeatherNext remain a 'black box' to human forecasters, trained on historical patterns rather than atmospheric physics, and are used alongside rather than instead of traditional methods. Jamaica exercises no ownership or governance over the underlying model, which remains an externally built and operated tool it accesses only via NOAA.