Most of Jamaica remains without power, as our correspondent reports floods, mudslides and "palm trees tossed like toothpicks".

Melissa directly hit Jamaica on Tuesday as a Category 5 storm, the most powerful hurricane ever to hit the nation.

Once described as a tropical paradise, the coastal town of Black River, Jamaica, is now being compared to “hell on Earth” after being ravaged by Hurricane Melissa.

Gathering data from planes inside hurricanes is a dangerous game and 52 lives have been lost since operations began in 1944.

Slow-moving hurricanes and tropical storms can be as dangerous as intense hurricanes, even when they are weaker. A textbook case of this happened in late October 1998.

Hurricane Melissa is expected to weaken into an extratropical cyclone on Friday, Oct. 31, the National Hurricane Center said.

The hurricane that tore through the Caribbean this week broke records, rapidly intensifying and surprising some meteorologists.

Now, as a weakened category 2 storm, there have been some impacts felt in the Bahamas, with Melissa tracking toward Bermuda on Thursday. Beyond that, as can be fairly typical, Melissa will weaken so that it will no longer be a hurricane or tropical storm as it moves into the North Atlantic.