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A U.S. Air Force Reserve Crew from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, known as the “Hurricane Hunters,” made multiple passes inside Hurricane Melissa capturing astonishing footage that showcases the “stadium effect.” Melissa is a category five hurricane and is the world’s strongest storm of 2025. Jamaica is currently braced for impact and it is expected to move toward eastern Cuba and the Bahamas. Yesterday (Monday), the Hurricane Hunters aircraft flew through the eye of Melissa to collect data for the National Hurricane Center. From above, the storm revealed the striking stadium effect, a bowl-shaped appearance created by the towering walls that surround the calm eye and slope outward with great height. As warm, moist air rises along the eye wall, it cools and spreads outward, causing the upper parts of the storm to flare and giving the eye its remarkable resemblance to the inside of a sports stadium — wide at the top and narrowing toward the center below. Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci was on a different Hurricane Hunters flight that flew through Melissa on Sunday, an experience he called “one of the most striking moments of my career and a once-in-a-lifetime glimpse into meteorology that most will never have.” “I was sitting in the middle of a 10-mile-wide stadium of the gods. On all sides, hulking thunderstorms towered high above me — yet, directly overhead, the stars twinkled,” Cappucci writes for The Washington Post. The meteorologist says that after decades of marveling over photos of the stadium effect, he felt emotional being in the eye of Melissa and getting photos of his own.
