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Trop­i­cal Storm Melis­sa dumped heavy rain on parts of Haiti and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic on Wednes­day as fore­cast­ers warned of a sig­nif­i­cant flood risk in parts of the north­ern Caribbean in the com­ing days.

The slow-mov­ing storm was lo­cat­ed about 305 miles (495 kilo­me­ters) south-south­west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and some 335 miles (540 kilo­me­ters) south­east of Kingston, Ja­maica. It had max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 50 mph (80 kph) and was mov­ing west-north­west at 2mph (4 kph), ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter.

“Peo­ple across Haiti, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Cu­ba and Ja­maica need to pre­pare for the in­creas­ing threat of tor­ren­tial rain­fall, flash flood­ing, pow­er out­ages, and roads be­ing washed out. The im­pacts from Melis­sa could be cat­a­stroph­ic,” said Alex DaSil­va, Ac­cuWeath­er’s lead hur­ri­cane ex­pert.