The first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season has arrived several weeks in advance. This Sunday Beryl went from being a storm to becoming a Category 4 hurricane —in just a few hours— while it is located in the Caribbean —near Barbados— and is moving at about 33 kilometers per hour, towards the west, with winds of up to 215 kilometers per hour. Its center is located 565 kilometers east-southeast of Barbados and about 3,590 kilometers east-southeast of the State of Quintana Roo, in Mexico. According to Conagua, due to the distance, Beryl does not yet represent a danger to Mexican territory.
According to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) at 8:00 a.m. this Sunday, Beryl It was about 675 kilometers east-southeast of Barbados, with maximum sustained winds of 185 kilometers per hour, and in less than 4 hours it intensified to category 4 with winds of 215 kilometers per hour. According to experts consulted by the American news network cnnit is unusual for tropical systems to form east of the Lesser Antilles in June and they quote Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane expert and research scientist at Colorado State University, who says that the fact that it formed so early — and at that point in the Atlantic Ocean — “is a sign of the hyperactivity of the hurricane season that is coming.”
Although Beryl Although it is still far from Mexican territory, it does represent a considerable threat to the territories through which it will move during the next few hours, the NHC has called for consideration of the warnings it issues during its passage through the region: “It is expected to intensify rapidly. It is expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge to the Windward Islands in the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean as a major hurricane. A hurricane warning is now in effect for the island of Barbados.”
Beryl threatens the Windward Islands with its power of rain and winds (a group of islands made up of the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles, some of the main ones being Trinidad, Martinique, Basse Terre, Grande Terre, Dominica, Saint Lucia and Barbados ) in addition to affecting territories such as Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize and Guatemala.
The Hurricane Center has classified Beryl as a “potentially catastrophic” phenomenon due to the strength of the accompanying wind gusts, “life-threatening” storm surges and damaging waves: “Especially when Beryl “The storm is expected to pass over parts of the Windward Islands, with an increased risk of the core in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada, beginning early Monday morning. All preparations should be completed quickly by Sunday,” they said in their newsletter.
Hurricane #Beryl has just become the first June Category 4 Atlantic hurricane in history.
We have never seen such a strong hurricane this early in the season.
This is exactly why we were so worried about hurricane season this year.
Unprecedented. pic.twitter.com/8I4f624B5z
— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) June 30, 2024
After the hurricane passed Otis, in 2023 in Mexico—which went from a tropical storm to category 5 in a very rare event that was catastrophic for the state of Guerrero—some scientists warned that in 2024 the behavior of storms and hurricanes could be more violent and unexpected . According to predictions from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this year there would be “above normal” activity.
The NOAA warning pointed to a probability of 85%, in this season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, to record a greater number of sufficiently strong storms. Between 17 and 25 named storms are expected to generate in total, of which between 8 and 13 could become hurricanes and between 4 and 7 could be considered major, above category 3.
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