Beryl developed into a record-breaking Category 4 hurricane on Sunday – the earliest a storm has ever reached such intensity – as forecasters warned it would continue to rapidly intensify as it moved west towards the Caribbean Sea.
Before Beryl, the first Category 4 hurricane on record was Hurricane Dennis on July 8, 2005.
The first hurricane of the 2024 season, Beryl, is expected to bring “life-threatening winds and storm surge” to the Windward Islands, southeast of Puerto Rico and north of Venezuela, the National Hurricane Center said Sunday.
By Sunday afternoon, sustained winds reached 130 mph, forecasters said, making it an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 hurricane.
A hurricane warning has been issued for Barbados, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and the island of Tobago. The island of Martinique was under a tropical storm warning, while Dominica, Trinidad and parts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti were under a tropical storm warning.
Life-threatening winds and storm surge were expected in the Windward Islands early Monday morning, the National Hurricane Center said Sunday morning.
Hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean are now twice as likely to grow from a weak storm to a major Category 3 hurricane or higher in just 24 hours, according to a study published last year.
Destructive winds from Beryl will occur where the eyewall, the area surrounding the eye of a hurricane, crosses the islands. In the higher elevations of the islands’ hills and mountains, winds can be even stronger.
Beryl is the third first major hurricane to ever form in the Atlantic, according to Philip Klotzbach, a seasonal hurricane forecaster at Colorado State University. The only hurricanes to form earlier in a calendar year were Alma on June 8, 1966 and Audrey on June 27, 1957.
Both made landfall on the US coast in the Gulf of Mexico: Alma near St. Marks, Florida and Audrey near Port Arthur, Texas.
Beryl became a tropical storm late Friday when its sustained winds reached 39 mph. At 74 mph, a storm becomes a hurricane.
Here are key things to know about the storm.
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Swells generated by Beryl are expected to reach the Windward and southern Leeward Islands by late Sunday, forecasters said, and are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.
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The storm is expected to cross the eastern Caribbean islands as early as Sunday evening before moving across the central Caribbean Sea by midweek.
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Three to six inches of rain, hurricane-force winds and dangerous storm surge are possible across the eastern Caribbean islands, including Barbados, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sunday through Monday.
Countries prepare for Beryl.
Grenada Prime Minister Dixon Mitchell said the country would be under a state of emergency from 7pm on Sunday.
Apart from police and essential workers, “everyone is expected to be in their homes or in a shelter,” he said.
In a national address on Sunday, Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, urged residents to take the storm seriously, saying many buildings could lose their roofs.
“There are some people who hope for the best and we all have to do that,” he said. “But we all have to prepare for the worst.”
The prime minister ordered, from 7 pm on Sunday, that people remain where they are. Emergency shelters were scheduled to open at 6 p.m. Sunday.
In Saint Lucia, Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre announced a nationwide shutdown at 8:30 p.m. Sunday, with schools and businesses remaining closed Monday.
In Barbados, two London-bound flights were the last international departures from Grantley Adams International Airport on Sunday afternoon before it was closed. Tourism officials said visitors to the island are welcome at government-designated shelters, which are expected to open at 6pm on Sunday.
This hurricane season is expected to be a busy one.
Forecasters have warned that the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season could be much more active than usual.
As of late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 17 to 25 named storms this year, an “above normal” number and a prediction consistent with more than a dozen forecasts earlier in the year from experts at universities, private companies and government agencies.
Hurricane seasons produce 14 named storms, on average.
The outlook for the seasonal hurricane was particularly aggressive because forecasters looking ahead to the start of the season saw a combination of circumstances not present in records dating back to the mid-1800s: record warm water temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean and the potential formation of a weather pattern known as La Niña.
When strong, La Niña usually provides a calm environment in the Atlantic. This allows storms to more easily develop and strengthen without interference from wind patterns that might otherwise prevent them from organizing.
Johnny Diaz, John Yoon, John KeefeKenton X. Chance, Julius Gittens, Sharefil Gaillard, Linda Straker and Yan Zhuang contributed to the report.
