The explosive growth of Hurricane Beryl, which has transformed into an unprecedented early storm, shows the literal hot water The Atlantic and Caribbean are in great shape and the type of season to come, experts said.
Beryl broke several records even before its major hurricane-force winds reached land. The powerful storm is behaving more like the monsters that form at the height of hurricane season, largely because water temperatures are as warm or warmer than the region normally experiences in September, five hurricane experts told The Associated Press.
Beryl set the record for the earliest Category 4 with winds of at least 209 km/h (130 mph) — the first Category 4 on record in June. It was also the first storm to rapidly intensify with winds reaching 102 km/h (63 mph) in 24 hours, going from an unnamed depression to a Category 4 in 48 hours.
On Monday evening, it strengthened to a category 5making it the earliest hurricane of that strength observed in the Atlantic basin in years, and only the second Category 5 hurricane in July after Hurricane Emily in 2005, the National Hurricane Center said. Category 5 storms have winds exceeding 157 mph (250 km/h).
Beryl is following an unusually southerly path, especially for a major hurricane, said Kristen Corbosiero, an atmospheric scientist at the University at Albany.
The hurricane made landfall on the island of Carriacou on Monday with winds of up to 150 mph (240 km/h) and is expected to batter the southeastern Caribbean islands. Beryl could remain close to its current strength for another day before beginning to weaken significantly, according to forecasts late Monday.
“Beryl is unprecedentedly strange,” said Jeff Masters, a Weather Underground co-founder and former government hurricane meteorologist who has flown over storms. “It’s so outside of climatology that you look at it and wonder, ‘How could this have happened in June?’”
The sea floods the street after Hurricane Beryl passed through St. Lawrence, Barbados, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
We have to get used to it. Forecasters predicted months ago It was going to be an unpleasant year and now they are comparing it to occupied record 1933 And deadly 2005 — the year of Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Dennis.
“These are the types of storms we’re looking for this year, these freak events that happen when and where they shouldn’t,” said Brian McNoldy, a tropical meteorologist at the University of Miami. “Not only are storms forming and intensifying and reaching higher intensities, but they’re also increasing the likelihood of rapid intensification. This is all happening right now, and it won’t be the last time.”
Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at the University of Colorado, called Beryl “a harbinger of potentially more interesting things to come. Not that Beryl isn’t interesting in and of itself, but there are more potential threats and more storms like this, not just one, that could come later.”
The water temperature around Beryl is about 2 to 3.6 degrees (1 to 2 degrees Celsius) above normal at 84 degrees (29 Celsius), which “is ideal if you’re a hurricane,” Klotzbach said.
FILE – Residents cover the windows of their homes in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Beryl in Bridgetown, Barbados, June 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa, File)
Warm water fuels thunderstorms and the clouds that form hurricanes. The warmer the water and thus the air at the bottom of the storm, the more likely it is to rise higher into the atmosphere and create deeper thunderstorms, said Corbosiero of the University at Albany.
Sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Caribbean “are higher than the average September (peak season) temperature should be over the last 30 years,” Masters said.
It’s not just warm water at the surface that matters. Ocean heat content, a measure of the deeper waters that storms need to continue strengthening, is well above record levels for this time of year and is in line with the expected peak in September, McNoldy said.
“So when you get all that thermal energy, you can expect fireworks,” Masters said.
This year, there is also a significant difference between water temperature and air temperature at high altitudes in tropical regions.
The bigger the difference, the more likely it is that storms will form and become bigger, said Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane expert at MIT. “The Atlantic is warmer than the rest of the tropics,” he said.
Atlantic waters have been unusually warm since March 2023 and heat record since April 2023. Klotzbach said a high-pressure system that normally creates cooling trade winds then collapsed and has not returned.
Corbosiero said scientists debate what exactly that means climate change The same goes for hurricanes, but they’ve come to an agreement that it makes them more likely to intensify quickly, like Beryl did, and makes the strongest storms, like Beryl, more likely.
Emanuel said slowing Atlantic ocean currents, likely caused by climate change, could also be a factor in the warming water.
A La Niña brewingA slight cooling of the Pacific that is altering the global climate could also be a factor. Experts say La Niña tends to dampen the high-altitude crosswinds that decapitate hurricanes.
La Niña typically results in an increase in the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic and a decrease in the Pacific. The eastern Pacific saw no storms in May and June, something that has happened only twice before, Klotzbach said.
Globally, this year could be below average in terms of tropical cyclones, except in the Atlantic.
On Sunday night, Beryl underwent an eyewall replacement, which typically weakens a storm as it forms a new center, Corbosiero said. But now the storm has regained strength.
“It’s kind of the worst-case scenario,” she said. “We’re starting early, with some very severe storms… Unfortunately, it looks like things are going the way we expected.”
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Seth Borenstein has been covering hurricanes for nearly 35 years and is on X at @borenbears
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