With its violent passage through the ultra-warm waters of the southeastern Caribbean, Beryl has turned meteorologists’ worst fears of an intense hurricane season into a grim reality. Now it’s Texas’ turn.
Beryl struck Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Friday as a Category 2 hurricane, then weakened to a tropical storm. It is expected to reach southern Texas by Sunday night or Monday morning, regaining hurricane status as it moves across the Gulf of Mexico.
Jack Beven, a specialist at the National Hurricane Center, said: Beryl would make landfall somewhere between Brownsville and just north of Corpus Christi on Monday. The hurricane center predicts it will be a strong Category 1 storm, but wrote that this estimate is conservative. That could all change if Beryl remains above water longer than expected, the center warned.
The waters of the Gulf of Mexico are warm enough for early-season storms to intensify quickly, as has happened several times before.
PHOTO HUGO BORGES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The tropical storm Beryl caused damage as it passed through Progreso, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, on July 5.
“We shouldn’t be surprised if this intensifies rapidly before landfall and becomes a major hurricane,” said Jeff Masters, co-founder of Weather Underground and a former government hurricane meteorologist who tracks storms closely.
“Category 2 may be more likely, but we should not rule out a Category 3 possibility.”
Berylat full speed
Jack Beven said that according to official forecasts, Beryl would gain 27 to 37 kilometers per hour in speed in a single day. He noted, however, that the storm intensified more quickly than forecasters had reported earlier in the Caribbean.
“South Texas residents must now keep an eye on the progress of Beryl “, warned Mr. Beven.
Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, said hurricane center forecasters have been very accurate in predicting the path of Beryl so far.
Already three times in his week-long life, Beryl gained 56 km/h in speed in 24 hours or less, the official definition of rapid intensification by weather services.
The storm gusted from 128 to 185 km/h during the night of June 29 to June 30. On June 1er In July, it jumped from 120 to 155 mph (193 to 249 km/h) in just 15 hours, according to hurricane center records.
Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, used a different tracking system and said he counted eight different periods when Beryl rapidly intensified – something that has only happened twice in the Atlantic in July.
Kerry Emanuel, a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said there is “not much chance” that the speed of Beryl increases by 56 km/h in the Gulf of Mexico, but admitted that it was a difficult thing to predict.
The rapid growth of Beryl into a fearsome storm shows how much hot water the Atlantic and Caribbean are in for the rest of the hurricane season, experts said.
Records shattered
The storm broke several records even before its major winds approached the island of Carriacou, Grenada on Monday.
PHOTO LUCANUS OLLIVIERRE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Homes were destroyed by the hurricane Beryl in Clifton, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, on July 4.
Beryl set the record for the first Category 4 hurricane with winds of at least 130 mph (209 km/h) – the first Category 4 in June. It was also the first storm to rapidly intensify with winds reaching 63 mph (102 km/h) in 24 hours, going from a normal depression to a Category 4 in 48 hours.
Phil Klotzbach has qualified Beryl of warning sign.
Forecasters had been warning months ago that this would be a tough year for hurricanes. Now they’re comparing it to the busy year of 1933 and the deadly year of 2005, when Katrina, Rita, Wilma And Dennis had destroyed everything in their path.
“This is the type of storm we’re expecting this year, these freak events that happen when and where they shouldn’t,” McNoldy warned.
Warm water acts as fuel for the thunderstorms and clouds that form hurricanes. The warmer the water and thus the air at the bottom of the storm, the greater the chance it will rise higher into the atmosphere and create deeper storms, says Kristen Corbosiero of the University at Albany.
“So when you get all that thermal energy, you can expect fireworks,” Masters added.
Atlantic waters have reached a record high since April 2023.
Kristen Corbosiero said scientists debate the exact effect of climate change on hurricanes, but they agree that it makes them more likely to intensify quickly and be more powerful, as is the case with Beryl.
Kerry Emanuel, for his part, pointed out that the slowdown of the currents of the Atlantic Ocean, probably caused by climate change, could also contribute to the increase in water temperature.
The rise of the natural weather phenomenon La Niña, a slight cooling of the Pacific that is changing the climate globally, may also be to blame.
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