Caribbean alert: Hurricane Beryl, 1st ever category 4 storm recorded in June

Hurricane Beryl currently spinning toward the Caribbean’s Windward Islands at 33 mph has broken every record as the earliest category 4 storm in history.

Already, forming so early in the season, its escalation from a tropical depression to major hurricane 42 hours puts Beryl into a rare category that only six other hurricanes have occupied, as per the The Guardian.

Reaching category 3 on Sunday, June 30, its location east of Lesser Antilles, makes it the first major hurricane recorded at that distance in June that soon became a category 4, so it then surpassed records held by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, Audrey in 1957, and the 1933 Atlantic Hurricane Season, officially titled.

The 1933 Atlantic Hurricane Season with 20 named storms and six major hurricanes in a suite of 11 was the most active season after the 2005 North Atlantic hurricane season, it was thought. However, a reanalysis seemed to shift that metric, particularly around its cyclone energy which concerns duration, frequency, and intensity.

As stated, a better understanding of extremely active seasons may aid in anticipation of future hyperactive seasons, and 2024 is set to go down in history. In regards to its projected strength, the Treasure Coast Hurricane of 1933 attained maximum winds of 140 miles per hour as a category 3.

Beryl is now at a category 3

Beryl is already generating winds at 130 miles per hour as a category 4. However, CNN reports it as a category 3 as of two hours ago, indicating that its force has weakened. This weakening is typical as hurricanes approach shore, but it can gain momentum again.

Some literature even suggests that hurricanes are intensifying faster in recent years . Nevertheless, a category three can rip buildings off of their foundations and destroy crops.

Officials have communicated its potentially disastrous impacts, and locals r ushed to prepare as Beryl formed Saturday afternoon remarkably early in the season.

The National Hurricane Center advised, “Beryl is expected to remain an extremely dangerous major hurricane… with potentially catastrophic hurricane-force winds, a life-threatening storm surge, and damaging waves.”

The areas at highest risk include Tobago, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, and Grenada. Tropical storm warnings have been issued to the southern coast of the Dominican Republic and Haiti and across its projected path, expected to pass 70 miles south of Barbados on Monday morning and continue onwards toward Jamaica. It’s expected to continue weakening heading toward Mexico, as reported by The Guardian.

A history-making hurricane: Beryl

The planet has seen a string of hyperactive seasons, including one in 2020. However, Science Alert quoted the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that they expected the upcoming season to be nothing short of “extraordinary” back in May.

They cite the cause to higher temperatures and weather conditions related to La Nina, the planet’s cooling system, but fundamentally climate change that has triggered stronger seasons in recent years.

According to The Guardian , the deep Atlantic waters are unusually warm —the highest on record, in fact — as they exceed temperatures at the peak of the season in September.

As a history-making hurricane, figures spin around it almost as fast as it does. It’s the Atlantic Ocean’s third-earliest hurricane, CNN concludes , after Hurricane Alma on June 8, 1966, followed by Hurricane Audrey on June 27, 1957.

The season seems to have set its sights on breaking every record. On average, the Atlantic sees about a dozen storms a season with six of them becoming hurricanes, but typically the first two months are the calmest, so the world awaits what this year’s weather patterns will teach us this summer.