Judson Jones, meteorologist and reporter, writes for the New York Times:
Melissa made landfall in Jamaica with both 185 m.p.h. winds and the 892-millibar pressure.
In the Atlantic, only one other storm has ever struck land with this exact ferocity: the unnamed Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, which tore through the Florida Keys.
Nearly a century ago, that storm’s pressure reading was taken by a weather observer who climbed a tree to record it.
Melissa’s was measured by a hurricane hunter plane that flew into the eye of the storm.
The distance from the eye of the storm to the top of the frame is about 200 miles (320 km).
[Picture from NOAA, posted in the New York Times]