Hurricane Beryl was moving west through the Atlantic Ocean as a Category 4 storm Monday morning, as people on islands across the Caribbean braced for life-threatening winds and storm surges later in the day.
Here are key things to know about the storm.
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Barbados largely avoided the worst effects of Beryl, officials there said Monday morning. The storm is expected to cross the Windward Islands later Monday before traversing the central Caribbean Sea through the middle of the week.
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Swells created by Beryl are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.
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Three to six inches of rain, hurricane-force winds and dangerous storm surge are possible in the eastern Caribbean Islands, including St. Vincent and the Grenadines, through Monday.
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By next weekend, the storm could make it into the Gulf of Mexico, but it is “too soon” to discuss what happens if and when it does, forecasters said Monday morning.
When Beryl developed into a Category 4 hurricane on Sunday, it was the earliest in a season that a storm had reached such strength. The earliest Category 4 hurricane on record had been Hurricane Dennis on July 8, 2005.
Beryl, the first hurricane of the 2024 season, was downgraded slightly early Monday but strengthened again to a Category 4 storm, with maximum sustained winds near 130 miles per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center. The center said in an advisory that life-threatening winds and storm surges were expected within hours in the Windward Islands, southeast of Puerto Rico and north of Venezuela.
A hurricane warning was in effect for Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and the island of Tobago. Martinique, Trinidad and St. Lucia were under a tropical storm warning, while parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic were under a tropical storm watch.
Officials in Barbados said Monday morning that the island had been spared from the worst of the hurricane, as it passed close to the southern tip of the country.
Hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean are now twice as likely to grow from a weak storm into a major Category 3 or higher hurricane within just 24 hours, according to a study published last year.
Devastating winds from Beryl will occur where the eye wall, the area that surrounds the eye of a hurricane, scrapes across the islands. Across the higher elevations of the hills and mountains of the islands, the winds might be even stronger.
Beryl is the third earliest major hurricane to ever form in the Atlantic, according to Philip Klotzbach, an expert in seasonal hurricane forecasts at Colorado State University. The only hurricanes to have formed earlier in a calendar year were Alma on June 8, 1966, and Audrey on June 27, 1957. Both made landfall on the U.S. coastline in the Gulf of Mexico: Alma near St. Marks, Fla., and Audrey near Port Arthur, Texas.
Beryl became a tropical storm late on Friday when its sustained winds reached 39 miles per hour. At 74 m.p.h., a storm becomes a hurricane.
Countries prepare for Beryl.
As officials across the Caribbean braced for the storm to arrive, Barbados appeared to have avoided the worst effects of Beryl.
By 5 a.m., sustained wind speeds of over 45 m.p.h. were recorded at the Grantley Adams International Airport in the southern parish of Christ Church, which has been taking the brunt of Beryl. Gusts up to 60 m.p.h., accompanied by bouts of driving rain were reported throughout the southern half of the island.
There were no overnight reports of injuries, Wilfred Abrahams, the minister of home affairs and information, said during on a broadcast from the emergency operations center in a daybreak broadcast.
“We dodged a bullet,” he said. “Or we’re in the process of dodging bullet, but there is still a lot of weather to come.”
Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell of Grenada said that the country would be under a state of emergency starting at 7 p.m. on Sunday.
Except for the police and essential workers, “everyone is expected to be in their homes or in a shelter,” he said.
Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Sunday urged residents to take the storm seriously, saying that many buildings could lose their roofs.
In St. Lucia, Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre announced a countrywide shutdown at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, with schools and businesses remaining closed on Monday.
After Beryl passes through the eastern Caribbean Islands on Monday, it is expected to continue pushing west over the Central Caribbean, skirting just south of Jamaica in the middle of the week and into the Yucatan Peninsula by the weekend. There is some indication that the hurricane may weaken over the central Caribbean.
This hurricane season is expected to be busy.
Forecasters have warned that the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season could be much more active than usual.
In late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 17 to 25 named storms this year, an “above-normal” number and a prediction in line 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.
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