As Hurricane Melissa intensifies into a powerful Category 4 storm with the potential to reach Category 5 strength, U.S. authorities at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have begun evacuating non-mission-essential U.

Hurricane Melissa is now a potentially devastating Category 5 storm heading toward Jamaica as more U.S. military assets head toward the region.

The news “underscores the profound ecological toll that Hurricane Melissa will have on Jamaica’s biodiversity,” said one expert on the island.

Severe weather can target any part of the globe, but each year the Atlantic hurricane season brings heavy rain, strong wind, storm surge and sometimes catastrophic devastation to locations from the Caribbean islands and Central America all the way up ...

The two categories combined make up about 17 percent of all hurricanes in recorded history. Those reaching Category 5 — like Melissa — historically make up more like 4 percent of hurricanes. And fewer than half of the strongest two categories of hurricanes go on to hit land at such intensity.