Earliest Ever Category-4 Hurricane Beryl Barrels Through Caribbean

The first hurricane of the 2024 season, “extremely dangerous” Hurricane Beryl — the earliest-ever Category-4 hurricane — headed toward the Windward Islands Sunday night, bringing strong winds and flash flooding on Monday, according to the United States National Hurricane Center.

Beryl made landfall Monday morning on Carriacou Island in the Grenadines as a Category 4 with heavy rain, 150 miles-per-hour maximum sustained winds and life-threatening storm surge, reported CNN. It is the strongest hurricane to make its way through the area since National Oceanic and Atmospheric data began in 1851.

“Hurricanes don’t know what month it is, they only know what their ambient environment is,” Jim Kossin, a First Street Foundation science advisor and hurricane expert, told CNN. “Beryl is breaking records for the month of June because Beryl thinks it’s September.”

The deluge from Hurricane Beryl caused power outages, and its storm surge brought flooding for portions of Grenada, Barbados, the Grenadines and Tobago on Monday, the National Hurricane Center said.

The quick strengthening of Beryl due to the unusually warm ocean waters was a sign that the 2024 hurricane season would be abnormally severe.

Kossin said Beryl’s record-breaking strength combined with the ocean heat “certainly have a human fingerprint on them.”

The hurricane-force winds brought by Beryl extended 40 miles from its center, with tropical-storm-force winds reaching 125 miles.

The National Hurricane Center said Beryl’s “life-threatening storm surge will raise water levels by as much as 6 to 9 feet above normal tide levels.”

After the strong hurricane’s landfall, waves could also churn up life-threatening rip currents and surf and threaten fishers and small vessels.

Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Amor Mottley warned people to be “extremely vigilant” in the face of potential flash flooding in Barbados and the Windward Islands.

Hurricane warnings were in effect for St. Vincent, the Grenadines and Barbados, Grenada and Tobado, while Jamaica was under a hurricane watch. Martinique, Saint Lucia and Trinidad were under tropical storm warnings.

More than 400 people had taken refuge in hurricane shelters in Barbados Sunday night, Ramona Archer-Bradshaw, the country’s chief shelter warden, told CBC News, as CNN reported.

Airports in Saint Lucia, Grenada and Barbados were closed on Sunday.

Beryl’s path is unclear, but it will continue over the Caribbean Sea into Thursday as a major hurricane.

Hurricane Beryl’s next expected landfall is around the Yucatan Peninsula sometime around Friday morning. If the storm stays together over land long enough to reach the Gulf of Mexico’s warm waters, it could pose a threat to northeast Mexico or the Gulf Coast of the United States.

“Beryl is expected to remain an extremely dangerous major hurricane as its core moves through the Windward Islands into the eastern Caribbean,” the National Hurricane Center said, as reported by Reuters.