Hurricane Beryl is raging over the Windward Islands as a Category 4, bringing high gusts, heavy rain, and a life-threatening storm surge after landfall on Monday.
According to NOAA statistics dating back to 1851, it is the strongest storm to pass through this region.
Hurricane Beryl Makes Landfall As Life-Threatening Category 4 Storm
Beryl made landfall shortly after 11:00 a.m. EDT on the Grenadines’ Carriacou Island in the Caribbean Sea, with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph. According to the National Hurricane Center, the storm caused power outages, flooded streets, and brought storm surge flooding to sections of the Grenadines, Grenada, Barbados, and Tobago on Monday.
Beryl’s arrival marks a particularly early start to the Atlantic hurricane season. On Sunday, it became the Atlantic Ocean’s earliest Category 4 storm on record and the only one in June. The bathtub-warm ocean conditions that aided Beryl’s worrisome strengthening strongly indicate that this hurricane season will be abnormal due to global warming caused by fossil fuel pollution.
According to Jim Kossin, a hurricane expert and science advisor at the charity First Street Foundation, Beryl is smashing June records because the ocean is as warm as it would be during hurricane season.
“Hurricanes don’t know what month it is, they only know what their ambient environment is,” Kossin told CNN on Wednesday. “Beryl is breaking records for the month of June because Beryl thinks it’s September.”
Kossin noted that the ocean heat driving Beryl’s extraordinary power “certainly has a human fingerprint on it.”
Beryl is the Atlantic’s first big hurricane (Category 3 or higher) in 58 years. According to National Hurricane Center Director Mike Brennan, the storm’s quick intensification is unusual for this early in hurricane season. According to NOAA statistics, tropical systems, particularly strong ones, rarely form in the central Atlantic east of the Lesser Antilles in June.
The storm isn’t simply early in the season. It is presently the Atlantic Ocean’s third-earliest significant storm. The first was Hurricane Alma on June 8, 1966, followed by Hurricane Audrey, which reached major hurricane status on June 27, 1957.
Beryl also broke the record for the easternmost hurricane to form in the Tropical Atlantic in June, surpassing the previous record established in 1933.
Hurricane Beryl Makes Landfall As Life-Threatening Category 4 Storm
August is generally a more active month in the Middle and Eastern Atlantic because warmer water temperatures fuel emerging systems.
This year, the Atlantic basin has had above-normal water temperatures and a lack of wind shear due to the shift from El Niño to La Niña season, fueling tropical development.
“Beryl has found an environment with very warm ocean waters for this time of year,” she said.
According to Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane expert and research scientist at Colorado State University, systems forming in this section of the Atlantic early in the summer signify the upcoming hyperactive hurricane season. Normally, water temperatures in June and July do not support tropical ecosystems.
“That’s well above average,” Brennan said.
SOURCE – (CNN)
