‘Extremely Dangerous’ Hurricane Beryl Threatens Caribbean

A boarded building before hurricane Beryl lands in Bridgetown, Barbados, on June 29.

(Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Beryl remains an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 hurricane, set to cause massive damage across the Caribbean's Windward Islands late Sunday into Monday.

Beryl's winds have reached 130 miles (209 kilometers) per hour, making it a major Category 4 hurricane as it churned westward toward islands including Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada, the National Hurricane Center said in an 11 p.m. New York time advisory.

“Potentially catastrophic hurricane-force winds, a life-threatening storm surge, and damaging waves are expected when Beryl passes over portions of the Windward Islands with the highest risk of the core in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada beginning early Monday morning,” Philippe Papin, a hurricane specialist at the center, said in a forecast.

After Beryl crosses the Windward Islands, an arc-shaped chain in the eastern Caribbean, it will move through the sea potentially threatening Haiti, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands through the week before possibly making landfall in Mexico on 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.

Meanwhile, a tropical depression in the Bay of Campeche off Tuxpan, Mexico, has strengthened into Tropical Storm Chris, and should make landfall in the coming hours. It will bring heavy rainfall and possibly mudslides in higher terrain.

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 will be only the third powerful storm to track through the Caribbean before August since 1851, Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, said in an email interview.

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.

“This isn't a good sign for the upcoming season,” Klotzbach said.

--With assistance from Heesu Lee and Stephen Stapczynski.

(Updates strength and forecast in second paragraph.)

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