Hurricane Melissa made landfall Tuesday in Jamaica as a fearsome Category 5 storm. Forecasters said it could be the island's "storm of the century."

The U.S. Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, known as the "Hurricane Hunters," were forced to turn back at one point due to heavy turbulence after flying into the eye of Hurricane Melissa on Monday.

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 erratic and slow-moving storm has killed at least three people in Haiti and a fourth person in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing.