'Extremely dangerous' hurricane Beryl's aggression threatens Caribbean

By Brian K. Sullivan

Hurricane Beryl has exploded in strength as it bears down on Barbados and the Caribbean’s Windward Islands, threatening residents with an “extremely dangerous” storm.
 

Beryl’s winds rapidly intensified to reach 120 miles (193 kilometers) per hour as of 11 a.m. local time from 50 mph a day before, making it a Category 3 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, the National Hurricane Center said. It’s forecast to spread flooding rains across Barbados later Sunday and become a major Category 4 hurricane with winds up to 140 mph later. 

Rapid intensification is a scientific term used when a storm’s winds increase by 35 mph or more in a 24 hour period, a phenomena that has become more common in recent years as the world’s oceans warm.

“Rapid strengthening is forecast over the next day or so, and Beryl is expected to become an extremely dangerous hurricane before it reaches the Windward Islands,” Eric Blake, a senior hurricane specialist at the center, wrote in an earlier forecast. “Devastating wind damage is expected where the eyewall of Beryl moves through portions of the Windward Islands.”

In the next day, Beryl will bring life-threatening winds, storm surge and flooding rain across the Caribbean, including Barbados, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadine Islands, where a warning is in place. After that Beryl sweeps the Windward Islands, an arc-shaped chain at the Caribbean’s east end, and it is forecast to push through the sea’s heart, possibly threatening Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Cuba before striking Mexico or Central America by Friday.

Most computer models keep Beryl away from US offshore oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico, but there is an outside chance the storm may threaten the region later this week.

What forecasters find alarming is that Beryl formed in an area of the Atlantic between the Caribbean and the Cabo Verde Islands in June. This stretch of ocean, called the main development region, doesn’t usually become active until late August. 

An early start due to warm water and optimal conditions there portends future disasters, and the hurricane center is already tracking what may be the season’s next storm after Beryl, near Cabo Verde. Before the six-month season started June 1, forecasters were already predicting the Atlantic would produce upwards of 20 or more storms, when an average year churns out 14. 

Beryl is the farthest east a hurricane has formed in June and is forecast to become a major system before July 1, which will make it only one of three to do so, Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, said in an email interview. It will be only the third storm so powerful to track through the Caribbean before August since 1851, he added. 

The records Beryl has shattered were set in 1933, when the fourth most active year in Atlantic also released the most energy, and 2005, which had the second highest number storms behind 2020.