Hurricane Beryl weakened slightly Tuesday into a Category 4 storm − from the monster Category 5 it became overnight − as it pushed farther into the Caribbean Sea, homing in on Jamaica and triggering warnings and advisories across Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and the Cayman Islands.
Beryl made landfall on Carriacou Island in Grenada as a Category 4 on Monday with 150-mph winds, causing at least three deaths and devastating Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The fast-moving storm then regained strength over the Caribbean Sea, and on Monday night it became the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record.
The National Hurricane Center said in its 11 p.m. ET advisory that Beryl had maximum sustained winds of near 150 mph − just 7 mph below the Category 5 threshold and down from 165 mph earlier in the day. But forecasters say Beryl will remain a powerful hurricane this week as it moves on a west-northwest path at almost 22 mph.
Forecasters said the center of Beryl will “move rapidly” across the central Caribbean Sea on Tuesday night before it reaches Jamaica. Beryl is “expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge to Jamaica” on Wednesday and to the Cayman Islands that night and into Thursday, the hurricane center said.
The storm surge along the Jamaican coast could be as much as 6 to 9 feet above normal tide levels, according to the hurricane center. As Beryl passes over or near Jamaica, currently about 300 miles east-southeast from the capital Kingston, its winds are forecast to decrease but the danger will remain high.
“Winds are expected to first reach tropical storm strength early on Wednesday,” the NHC said, “making outside preparations difficult or dangerous.”
Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness warned residents on Tuesday night “to take the hurricane as a serious threat,” and advised people to prepare for potential impacts but to remain calm. Holness added that officials have taken several precautionary measures in anticipation of Beryl.
The hurricane center is forecasting 4 to 8 inches of rain and up to 12 inches in isolated locations of Jamaica and the Barahona Peninsula in the southwest Dominican Republic, which could lead to flash flooding and mudslides.
The storm is predicted to pass near or over the Cayman Islands, potentially raising water levels by as much as 2 to 4 feet above normal tide levels and drenching the area with torrential rain. The southern coast of Haiti was placed under a hurricane watch as forecasters warned both Haiti and the Dominican Republic could start to see tropical storm conditions Tuesday.
Elsewhere, residents and visitors in the Cayman Islands, Belize, the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf are advised to closely monitor Beryl’s path. Additional weakening is expected later in the week, though Beryl is forecast to remain a hurricane in the northwestern Caribbean.
Developments:
∎ Officials in Mexico and Belize have issued advisories for parts of their countries, according to the National Hurricane Center. In Mexico, the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula is under hurricane watch while Belize issued a tropical storm watch from the south of Chetumal to Belize City.
∎ Winds gusted into the high 40s in Puerto Rico on Tuesday morning, while a gust of up to 54 mph was reported at Buck Island in the Virgin Islands.
∎ Swells capable of life-threatening surf and rip current conditions are expected to reach the southern coasts of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola on Tuesday afternoon, the NHC said.
∎ Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados announced on its website that it’s resuming operations after it closed on Sunday before Beryl caused considerable damage across the island.
∎ Jamaica’s government has issued a hurricane warning for the island country, while tropical storm warnings were in effect for parts of the southern Dominican Republic. Tropical storm conditions are expected in the warning area along the south coast of Hispaniola by late Tuesday, the hurricane center said.
President Biden is monitoring Hurricane Beryl, White House says
In a statement posted on X, the White House said President Joe Biden is “closely monitoring” Hurricane Beryl and his administration is poised to assist Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the region.
The statement added that Biden has been in contact with officials on the ground, including those with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Across Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the National Weather Service said Beryl’s impacts were minimal. However, coastal flood and high surf advisories will remain in southern Puerto Rico for another night.
Will Hurricane Beryl hit Texas, the US Gulf Coast?
As Hurricane Beryl heads across the Caribbean Sea after tearing through the Windward Islands, impacts on the U.S. and Gulf Coast remain unclear. There is still no consensus among the forecast models for the path Beryl could take after it crosses the Yucatan Peninsula and emerges in the Gulf of Mexico.
The models don’t agree on the strength or location of a possible break in the ridge over the southern United States. Weather Service offices in Houston and Corpus Christi, Texas, still aren’t expecting impacts outside ocean conditions by Saturday, but forecasters in both field offices Tuesday morning said they’ll be closely monitoring the center’s forecast over the next couple of days as the track becomes clearer.
“Folks in the Texas coast, as we go into the holiday weekend, you’re going to want to make sure you check back on the forecast and make sure you’re ready for any potential impacts,” National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan said. “If we were to see tropical storm conditions affect those areas in the far western Gulf of Mexico, it could be during the day Saturday.”
Because the forecast track puts Beryl in the Bay of Campeche − at the southern end of the gulf − as a tropical storm by Friday night and Saturday morning, a few models are showing an influx of tropical rain starting Saturday afternoon.
There’s likely going to be “an increasing rainfall threat in Mexico and Texas” by the weekend, said Alex Lamers, chief of the forecast operations branch at the service’s Weather Prediction Center. But there remains “a really high degree of uncertainty in the forecast once you get beyond Saturday.”
Regardless of Beryl’s exact track in the gulf, the weather service office in Corpus Christi said the southeast Texas coast also can expect a high risk of rip currents this weekend, and a medium chance for coastal flooding. Six rip-current deaths have already occurred this year along gulf coast beaches, and the weather service is increasingly concerned about the potential for rip currents over a holiday weekend when the beaches will likely be packed.
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Ahead of Hurricane Beryl, the streets of Jamaica are ‘in pandemonium’
Racquel Layne, a project coordinator with the local disaster relief organization St. Patrick’s Rangers, said the streets of Kingston, Jamaica, were chaotic on Tuesday as residents of the capital city braced for what’s expected to be the most devastating hurricane to hit the island in 30 years.
“The streets are in pandemonium right now,” she told USA TODAY. “I think everybody’s doing last-minute shopping and preparation.”
Some hurried to fortify their houses against the storm. “You see persons doing repairs on their walls, putting cinder blocks on their roof, getting their sandbags in preparation for Beryl,” Layne said.
Layne’s organization activated all of its response team members and was in the process of assigning them to specific communities Tuesday. Relief workers had also stockpiled family emergency and shelter kits and prepared community shelters throughout the parishes of Kingston, St. Andrew, St. Thomas and St. Catherine, she said. For 72 hours, “it’s been nonstop coordination and preparation and execution of our emergency response plan,” she said.
A climate of fear descended in Kingston as Beryl approached, Layne said. “The majority of persons are concerned, they’re scared,” she said. “They don’t know what to expect. They have seen the damage that Beryl has already done in the eastern Caribbean, and they are very anticipatory of what will happen in Jamaica.”
Neighbors stick together as Kingston, Jamaica, is in crosshairs
Ian Nicholas and his family spent hours Tuesday securing the roof of their home in the Riverton neighborhood of Kingston, Jamaica, with galvanized wire. The roof, made of zinc, would not fare well against Hurricane Beryl’s ferocious winds, he thought.
Nicholas, 34, and his wife Alicia, 31, felt confident they could weather the storm. Their five children were even excited to help out with the roof project. “They don’t really understand,” he said.
Nicholas recalled going through the same routine ahead of Hurricane Ian several years ago. “I don’t know if we’re scared. Because we have so many hurricanes, we have more experience,” he said.
Regardless, the neighborhood is sticking together ahead of Beryl’s arrival. “We encourage each other to prepare, button up roofs and windows,” Nicholas said. “We communicate.”
Experience informs Hurricane Beryl preparation
Danesha Wilson, 31, still remembers how her mother’s house filled with leaking water after Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
This time around in Kingston, Jamaica, she has a solid preparation plan for Hurricane Beryl. “I am currently on the road getting tall bunk lights and candles and stuff. I already have food at the house and water,” she told USA TODAY on Tuesday. “I’m going to board up the windows.”
Wilson said supermarket shelves in Kingston were cleaned out as people rushed to stock up ahead of Beryl’s landfall. “A lot of persons came yesterday and they got rid of everything,” she said.
The hurricane could take some financial toll on Wilson’s customized gift business by interrupting a peak week for school graduations. “People were going to give customized gifts to the graduates, and they won’t be able to get those anymore, because they have to be prepared for a hurricane,” she said. “That money that I was supposed to get, I won’t be able to get that anymore.”
Confidence in Hurricane Beryl projection cone is ‘rather low’
It is still too soon to say where the storm will wind up this weekend. The models used to forecast track have a wide spread of potential outcomes, and the forecast confidence in the official track is “rather low,” Philippe Papin, one of the National Hurricane Center’s hurricane specialists, wrote in Monday night’s forecast.
That includes uncertainty about what Beryl’s structure and intensity will look like as it approaches or crosses the Yucatan, but conditions in the Gulf of Mexico do not appear “especially favorable” for regaining strength if Beryl moves back out over the Gulf, Papin wrote.
The key question will be how strong the ridge of high pressure remains over the Gulf and whether it contracts to the east and gives Beryl a potential pathway for turning in a more northerly direction, National Weather Service forecasters said Monday. There’s certainly no consensus in the computer models used to forecast track, but a few of the projections hinted Monday at a possible northwestward turn in Beryl’s track that could point it toward the U.S. Gulf Coast by the weekend.
Hurricane Beryl kills at least 3 people, flattens islands
Officials reported devastating damage across the southern Windward Islands after Hurricane Beryl ripped across the region on Monday, including at least three deaths and damage to 90% of homes across the islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique.
Grenada Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said in a news conference that Carriacou “was flattened” in just 30 minutes. “The situation is grim,” Mitchell said Tuesday. “There’s almost complete destruction of homes and buildings on the island. The roads are not passable.”
Mitchell said the minister of Carriacou and Petite Martinique, Tevin Andrews, reported at least two deaths related to Hurricane Beryl.
On Monday, at least one death was reported in the St. Vincent and the Grenadines archipelago, and more may be revealed, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said. The hurricane “has left in its wake immense destruction,” Gonsalves said, adding that 90% of the homes in Union Island have been “severely damaged or destroyed.”
Fierce winds ripped the roofs off buildings and knocked out power across the St. Vincent community of Prospect. Other parts of the island of Grenada were plunged into the dark as well.
In Barbados, authorities gave the “all clear” after intense weather conditions from the passing hurricane subsided on Monday. While there was “considerable damage” to homes, buildings and boats throughout Barbados, no one was badly injured, Wilfred Abrahams, minister of home affairs and information, said at a news conference.
Meanwhile, at a restaurant in Kingston, Jamaica, waiter Welton Anderson told Reuters he felt calm despite the hurricane’s approach.
“Jamaicans wait until the last minute. The night before or in the morning the panic sets in. It’s because we’re used to this,” he said.
What is the 2024 hurricane season forecast?
Beryl has surprised forecasters almost since it formed, including rocketing from a tropical depression to a major hurricane in about 48 hours, and then in strengthening to a Category 5 storm. It was fueled by much warmer than normal ocean temperatures in the Atlantic and aided in that development by light winds that allowed it to build a strong inner core.
Forecasters fear it could be a scary sign of things to come in what has been projected to be a very busy season for tropical storms and hurricanes. Federal forecasters have predicted a hurricane season unlike any other, with as many as 25 named storms possible.
It is the most storms the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has ever predicted in a preseason outlook. “All the ingredients are in place for an active season,” National Weather Service director Ken Graham said in May.
NOAA director Rick Spinrad said the Atlantic hurricane season is shaping up to be “extraordinary” − an 85% chance for an above-average year. “The forecast … is the highest NOAA has ever issued for the May outlook,” he said.
Contributing: Cheryl McCloud, USA TODAY Network; Reuters
