Principal Director of the Meteorological Service of Jamaica Evan Thompson has dismissed claims circulating online that Hurricane Melissa was a man-made storm, insisting that such a notion is “impossible” and unsupported by science. Thompson said the hurricane’s formation, strength, and path were consistent with official forecasts and aligned with known effects of climate change. “I’ve never heard of anyone manufacturing a hurricane,” he said.

Chief meteorologist dismisses online rumours speculating Melissa man-made

Jamaica Gleaner/1 Nov 2025/Tanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter 

EVAN THOMPSON, principal director of the Meteorological Service of Jamaica, has scoffed at online conspiracy theories that the island’s recent hurricane was “manufactured”, declaring that such an idea is “impossible” and without any scientific basis.

Speaking with The Gleaner, Thompson said he had never heard of anyone creating a hurricane and stressed that the system’s formation, track, and intensity were all in line with forecasts issued by the Met Service.

“I’ve never heard of anyone manufacturing one,” he said. “I don’t know that it’s possible – definitely not in Jamaica. If somebody else was doing it somewhere else, I still don’t think it’s possible. That would really surprise me.”

Thompson acknowledged that technology continues to advance, but maintained that there is no scientific basis to support claims of artificial storm creation.

He also said there was nothing unusual about the hurricane’s development.

“What we saw was what we had expected to see in the system,” he explained. “The track was forecast, the increases in speed were forecast, and the slow movement initially was forecast. All those things were forecast.”

He added that the rapid intensification observed in recent tropical systems has long been predicted as a consequence of climate change, not an indication of manipulation.

“This new thing about systems developing so fast was also forecast with climate change,” he said. “So I don’t think anything happened that baffled us.”

Responding to public questions about the apparent lack of thunder and lightning during the hurricane, Thompson said he could not address that with any certainty.

“It could be that people didn’t hear it because of the noise of the wind and rain,” he explained. “Or maybe the area they were in had more rain clouds than thunderstorm clouds.”

FEATURES OF THUNDERSTORM

He noted too that lightning and thunder are feature more in thunderstorms, but it was likely there were some in Melissa.

“I can’t explain if none was detected or heard,” he said. “The most I could do is check whether we have any evidence of lightning or thunderstorms within the system. Maybe from some imagery, we have some amount of lightning detection, I could check that.”

Thompson emphasised that the absence of thunder or lightning does not make a hurricane unusual.

In the meantime, the meteorologist said that while Jamaica’s forecasting systems continue to improve, public understanding remains a challenge.

“Sometimes people latch on to the first forecast and ignore later ones, then say we were wrong,” Thompson said. “But forecasts are updated every day as new information comes in.”

He reminded the public to rely on the latest official forecasts from the Met Service, rather than outdated information or social media rumours.

“We do forecasts every morning and evening,” he noted. “The evening one is informed by more data, so that’s the one people should trust.”

Thompson said the agency continues to refine how it communicates weather information to ensure that Jamaicans better understand the science behind forecasting.

“People don’t always fully understand some of the terms we use,” he said. “So we’re learning how to communicate better based on what we see people don’t understand.”

The category 5 system, which is the country’s most dangerous hurricane in recorded history, made landfall near New Hope, Westmoreland, with wind speeds of up to 185 mph on Tuesday, causing widespread devastation in parishes including Westmoreland, St Elizabeth, St Ann and Trelawny, St James.

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