According to the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Melissa, now a Category 2 storm, is moving across eastern Cuba, bringing damaging winds, flash flooding and storm surge to the island after pummeling Jamaica. Melissa was located about 45 miles northwest of Guantanamo, Cuba.

Melissa made its first landfall on Tuesday in southwest Jamaica as a powerful Category 5 hurricane with 185 mph winds. The hurricane center said Melissa was a Category 2 storm on Wednesday morning as it prepared to emerge off the northern coast of Cuba and into the southwestern Atlantic.

Tropical Storm Melissa is expected to rapidly intensify over the weekend into a Category 4 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center. The slow-moving storm is forecast to bring "life-threatening and catastrophic flash flooding and landslides to southern Hispaniola and Jamaica through the weekend.

Lightning flashes in the eyewall of Category 5 Melissa are a marker of how strong the storm is. It reached a central pressure of 892 millibars, among the lowest ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean. It is tied as the third-most intense Atlantic storm with the devastating 1935 Labor Day hurricane.

Up to 40 inches of rain, 13 feet of storm surge and 160 mph sustained winds will cause “extensive infrastructure damage” that will cut off communities, the National Hurricane Center warned. Melissa has already killed three people in Haiti and Jamaica each and one person in the Dominican Republic.

Here's a look at where Tropical Storm Melissa is, where it's headed and the impacts it could have in Sarasota.