The storm will hit Bermuda on Thursday afternoon or evening, after Jamaica faced the devastation from one of the most powerful storms ever recorded.

After savaging Jamaica as one of the most powerful hurricanes on record, swamping Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas and skirting Bermuda, Hurricane Melissa is rapidly speeding out into the Atlantic and is expected to drop down into an extratropical cyclone later today, according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center.

Bermuda is yet again under a hurricane threat this season as Hurricane Melissa is forecast to charge north, bringing dangerous winds and storm surge.

Hurricane Melissa has rapidly intensified into a major Category 4 storm, producing maximum sustained wind speeds of 145 mph. If it maintains its strength, it could become the strongest hurricane to make landfall over the island since the National Hurricane Center started keeping records.

Hurricane Melissa has hit southwestern Jamaica as a catastrophic Category 5 storm, causing heavy flooding and wind damage.

A local government staffer from Chicago’s south suburbs is stranded in Jamaica without the medication keeping her transplanted kidney functioning.

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

South Florida was spared a direct blow from Hurricane Melissa, but the massive storm still hit home for the millions of residents there who have deep roots in the Caribbean.