Hurricane Beryl peaked in intensity as a devastating Category 5 storm on Tuesday morning before being downgraded to Category 4, and will remain a major hurricane as it pushes through the central Caribbean and passes dangerously close or even over Jamaica on Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said.
It is the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic Ocean, according to Philip Klotzbach, a meteorologist at Colorado State University who specializes in tropical cyclones. The previous record was Hurricane Emily on July 17, 2005, he said.
Beryl devastated islands in Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, killing at least four people, after making landfall earlier on Monday as a Category 4 hurricane.
In a social media briefing on Tuesday morning, Arthur Pierre, deputy coordinator for the National Disaster Management Agency in Grenada, said “we have lost almost 95 percent of the roof and housing stock in Petite Martinique and Carriacou,” referring to Grenada’s smaller islands.
Here are key things to know about the storm.
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Officials in Grenada reported three deaths from the storm, two on the country’s main island and one on Carriacou. Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said that Carriacou had been “flattened” in half an hour. One person was dead after the storm in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, according to Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves.
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The storm surge accompanying Beryl is expected to raise water levels by up to eight feet along the coast of Jamaica as the storm passes over the island on Wednesday. Flash flooding is also a concern as the storm brings up to 12 inches of rain.
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By next weekend, the storm is expected to emerge into the Gulf of Mexico, but there is still no consensus on what direction it will take and how intense it might be after passing over the Yucatán Peninsula.
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.
On Tuesday afternoon, the hurricane had weakened slightly to winds of 155 miles per hour, having peaked earlier in the day with sustained wind speeds of 165 m.p.h., the center said. The weakening trend was likely to continue over the next couple days. A hurricane needs wind speeds of at least 157 m.p.h. to be classified as a Category 5. A hurricane with winds of at least 111 m.p.h. is categorized as a major storm.
Despite some weakening, Beryl should remain a hurricane as it passes the Cayman Islands on Thursday and approaches Mexico early on Friday morning, according to forecasts.
A tropical storm warning was in effect for parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and a hurricane warning was in effect for Jamaica, where hurricane conditions were expected on Wednesday, the center said. The government of the Cayman Islands issued a hurricane warning on Tuesday afternoon for Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, and Cayman Brac.
Hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean have become more 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.
Beryl is the third earliest major hurricane to ever form in the Atlantic, according to Dr. Klotzbach. 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 dealt a hard blow to Grenada.
In Grenada, the complete scale of the damage on Carriacou and Petite Martinique would not be clear until Tuesday morning, said Mr. Mitchell, the prime minister., adding that he would travel to Carriacou as soon as it was safe to do so. There was no power on Carriacou and Petite Martinique, and communication was difficult, officials said.
Even before the hurricane made landfall in Grenada, the roof of one police station had blown off. The roof of a hospital was also damaged and patients were evacuated to the lower level, Mr. Mitchell said.
Just north of Carriacou, several islands in St. Vincent and the Grenadines also suffered “immense destruction,” Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said in a social media briefing.
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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