Hurricane Beryl has been upgraded to a “very dangerous” Category 3 as it approaches the southeast Caribbean, the U.S. the National Hurricane Center said Sunday.
The hurricane is located about 675 kilometres east-southeast of Barbados, with maximum sustained winds of 155 km/h, the NHC said.
It’s forecast to strengthen into an even more powerful Category 4 storm as it travels westward.
Beryl is expect to pass just south of Barbados early Monday and then head into the Caribbean Sea as a major hurricane on a path toward Jamaica. It is expected to weaken by mid-week but still remain a hurricane as it heads toward Mexico.
The region began shutting down Sunday amid urgent pleas from government officials for people to take shelter.
The storm is expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge in the Windward Islands beginning early Monday, the Miami-based centre said on its website.
Hurricane warnings were in effect for Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Long lines formed at gas stations and grocery stores in Barbados and other islands as people rushed to prepare.
Warm waters were fuelling Beryl, with ocean heat content in the deep Atlantic the highest on record for this time of year, according to Brian McNoldy, University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher.
Beryl marks the farthest east that a hurricane has formed in the tropical Atlantic in June, breaking a record set in 1933, according to Philip Klotzbach, Colorado State University hurricane researcher. If Beryl’s winds reach 200 km/h, it would be the second earliest such storm in the Atlantic on record, surpassing Audrey in 1957, he said.
As CBC meteorologist Ryan Snoddon explains, the official forecast calls for a very active season with 17 to 25 storms.
“We have to remain vigilant,” Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley said in a public address late Saturday. “We do not want to put anybody’s life at risk.”
Thousands of people were in Barbados for Saturday’s Twenty20 World Cup final, cricket’s biggest event, with Mottley noting that not all fans were able to leave Sunday despite many rushing to change their flights.
“Some of them have never gone through a storm before,” she said. “We have plans to take care of them.”
Barbados airport, businesses to close
Mottley said all businesses should close by Sunday evening and warned the airport would close by nighttime.
Kemar Saffrey, president of a Barbadian group that aims to end homelessness, said in a video posted on social media Saturday night that those without homes tend to think they can ride out storms because they’ve done it before.
“I don’t want that to be the approach that they take,” he said, warning that Beryl is a dangerous storm and urging Barbadians to direct homeless people to a shelter.
Echoing his comments was Wilfred Abrahams, minister of home affairs and information.
“I need Barbadians at this point to be their brother’s keeper,” he said. “Some people are vulnerable.”
Meanwhile, St. Lucia Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre announced a national shutdown for Sunday evening and said schools and businesses would remain closed on Monday.
“Preservation and protection of life is a priority,” he said.
Beryl is the second named storm in what is forecast to be an above-average hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Alberto came ashore in northeastern Mexico with heavy rains that resulted in four deaths.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts the 2024 hurricane season is likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast calls for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.
An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
