The NHC said in its advisory on the storm: "A Hurricane Watch has been issued for the southern peninsula of Haiti from the border with the Dominican Republic to Port-au-Prince. The government of Jamaica has issued a Tropical Storm Watch for the island."

A man was struck and killed by a tree branch in Wellington, New Zealand, as dangerous winds and heavy rain buffeted parts of the country.

The tropical storm was first addressed in an advisory by the National Hurricane Center at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Tropical Storm Melissa is in the Caribbean Sea, 300 miles south of Port Au Prince Haiti. The system, with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, is moving to the west at 14 mph.

National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologists issued an urgent storm warning as well as other severe weather alerts for thousands of Alaskans on Tuesday as a storm rolled into the panhandle. The strong winds are expected to cause numerous power outages.

Met Office yellow weather warnings have been issued for wind and rain impacts on Thursday in the United Kingdom. This severe weather come as a deepening area of low pressure heads across southern England that has the potential to be a named storm. Impacts for the UK do not look severe enough for the Met Office to name this weather system.

As the shutdown lurches into its third week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is among several government agencies in turmoil. Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC,