The National Hurricane Center said this morning that Hurricane Melissa made landfall on the southern coast of Cuba as an "extremely dangerous" Category 3 storm, with winds of 120 mph. The storm hit near the city of Chivirico in the Cuban province of Santiago de Cuba.

At first light on Wednesday, the coastal communities of southwestern Jamaica bore the devastation of being in the direct path of Hurricane Melissa.

Hurricane Melissa has hit Jamaica and Cuba. Where's it going to hit next? Here's the latest forecast and spaghetti models for Category 5 storm.

Hurricane Melissa made landfall over eastern Cuba early Wednesday as an "extremely dangerous" Category 3 storm, forecasters said, after pummeling Jamaica.

Hurricane Melissa tore a path of destruction across Jamaica on Tuesday, prompting the prime minister to declare the country a disaster area, after the storm made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane, one of the most powerful landfalls on record in the Atlantic basin.

More than 735,000 people were evacuated in Cuba by Tuesday night, Oct. 28, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in a social media post. In the Bahamas, next in Melissa's path to the northeast, the government ordered evacuations of residents in southern portions of that archipelago.

Hurricane Melissa barreled toward eastern Cuba, where it was expected to make landfall as a major storm early Wednesday after pummeling Jamaica as one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record.