A Media Matters review of national TV news coverage of Hurricane Melissa on October 28 found:

• Cable news networks — CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC — aired 102 combined segments about the storm, with 5 mentioning climate change. CNN led with 4 mentions, followed by MSNBC with 1.
• Corporate broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — aired 21 total segments about the storm. ABC and NBC each had 1 climate mention.
   

Hurricane Melissa formed over an unusually warm Atlantic Ocean and underwent one of the most rapid intensifications on record, doubling its wind speed in less than 24 hours before striking western Jamaica on October 28 as a Category 5 storm with 185 mph winds. A rapid-attribution study found that climate change made Melissa’s winds roughly 10 mph stronger than they would have been otherwise, while scientists pointed to some areas where sea-surface temperatures were 2 degrees Celsius above average as another clear fingerprint of global warming.

The storm left at least 25 people dead in Haiti, caused catastrophic flooding across Jamaica, and tore through Cuba before weakening over the Bahamas. In Jamaica, storm surge reached up to 13 feet, rainfall exceeded 30 inches in some areas, and roughly 77 percent of the island lost power. More than 25,000 people remained in shelters, and infrastructure across the western parishes was devastated. In Cuba, evacuations spared lives but damage to homes, crops, and power lines was widespread.

Although Melissa did not make U.S. landfall, coverage across major cable news networks was extensive. During the 24-hour period surrounding landfall:

• CNN aired 80 segments, with 4 climate mentions.
• MSNBC aired 14 segments, with 1 climate mention.
• Fox News aired 8 segments, with 0 climate mentions.

On corporate broadcast networks:

• ABC aired 7 segments, with 1 climate mention.
• CBS aired 8 segments, with 0 climate mentions.
• NBC aired 6 segments, with 1 climate mention.

Coverage across national TV networks described Melissa’s record-breaking strength and slow crawl toward Jamaica, emphasizing the danger of extreme winds, widespread flooding, and the humanitarian crisis that would follow. Anchors and correspondents interviewed government officials about evacuations, shelters, and power outages, while meteorologists detailed rainfall totals, wind speeds, and storm surge. The tone was empathetic and urgent, focused on the people in harm’s way and the logistical response unfolding in real time.

What was largely absent was context about why storms like this are becoming stronger and slower moving in a warming world, and how policy decisions shape nations’ ability to respond. The coverage captured Hurricane Melissa's danger but left audiences uninformed about the climate changes driving it.

Networks also missed the chance to challenge the “quiet Atlantic hurricane season” narrative. One catastrophic hurricane can erase any sense of calm, and with record ocean heat now a constant backdrop, this level of risk has become the baseline.

There were a few strong segments, however. For example, during the October 28 episode of ABC’s Good Morning America, chief meteorologist Ginger Zee reported that Trump administration cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and federal climate research could undermine hurricane forecasting and weaken the nation’s ability to prepare for future storms like Melissa. 

During the October 28 episode of MSNBC’s Chris Jansing Reports, climate scientist Michael Mann explained that hurricanes draw power from ocean heat made worse by fossil-fuel emissions, noting that warming has increased their strength and damage potential and calling for a rapid transition away from fossil fuels.

National TV news coverage of Hurricane Melissa rightly focused on Jamaica — the destruction, the challenges of recovery, and officials describing how communities were trying to be resilient in the face of disaster. But even in that context, most coverage stopped short of connecting Melissa’s record intensity to climate change. Viewers were told about record ocean heat and the storm’s rapid intensification, but rarely heard that those conditions are driven by human activity. Climate change was not presented as the defining factor that turned Melissa from a storm into a catastrophe.

That omission matters. Jamaica’s experience is part of a pattern scientists have warned about for years: Warmer oceans are producing stronger, wetter, and slower-moving storms. Those same conditions have made the United States more vulnerable, yet coverage rarely makes that connection. TV news reporting on Jamaica’s disaster preparedness also rarely examined how the 2025 Trump administration has gutted climate research, dismantled scientific capacity, and expanded fossil fuel development, leaving the United States more exposed to the same kind of extreme weather event.

National outlets continue to treat extreme weather events as stand-alone stories rather than as evidence of a worsening, interconnected crisis — a narrative framing that separates impact from accountability. Until extreme weather coverage consistently links cause and consequence, the press will keep documenting climate disasters without confronting what’s driving them.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original episodes of ABC's Good Morning America and World News Tonight, CBS' Mornings and Evening News, and NBC's Today and Nightly News as well as all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC for either of the terms “Melissa” or “Jamaica” within close proximity of either of the terms “thunderstorm” or “hurricane” or any variations of any of the terms “tropic,” “Category 5,” or “storm” from October 28, 2025, when Hurricane Melissa was expected to make landfall, through October 29, 2025.

We included segments, which we defined as instances when Hurricane Melissa was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the storm. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the hurricane with one another.

We did not include passing mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned the storm without another speaker engaging with the comment, or teasers, which we defined as instances when the host or anchor promoted a segment about the hurricane scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We then reviewed the identified segments for any mention of climate change or global warming.