Hurricane Melissa— one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded—is now off Cuba’s eastern coast, after leaving a trail of destruction across the large island and its much smaller neighbor, Jamaica.

Hurricane Melissa was one of the strongest hurricanes on record in the Atlantic. So is that proof that climate change is amplifying hurricanes? The short answer is no.

The capitals and exclamation points are warranted. Hurricane Melissa is an extraordinary storm, even among the many massive, fast-growing, devastating cyclones that have been erupting in the Atlantic Ocean in recent years.

Jamaica is expected to be in the storm's eyewall, which refers to the band of dense clouds surrounding the eye of the hurricane. The eyewall generally produces the fiercest winds and heaviest rainfall, according to Deanna Hence, a professor of climate, meteorology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The hurricane that tore through the Caribbean this week broke records, rapidly intensifying and surprising some meteorologists.