Its record-breaking intensification, occurring earlier in the year than any previous storm, is a harbinger of a historically turbulent year that scientists have been warning about. The extraordinary warmth that has been prevalent in Atlantic waters for more than a year was a key factor in early seasonal forecasts – and played a key role in Beryl’s extraordinary development.
In the United States, officials who closely follow weather forecasts said the storm had created a sense of urgency. And in the Caribbean, the storm has prompted immediate calls for action on climate change. Human burning of fossil fuels has warmed the planet by about 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 150 years and, along with a recent El Niño weather phenomenon, has pushed the world’s oceans toward dramatic and sustained warmth since early 2023.
“Beryl is clear and overwhelming evidence that we face a constant existential threat to our way of life,” said Dickon Mitchell, Grenada’s prime minister. He called on other countries to “move beyond rhetoric” and help the islanders overcome the “ever-present threat they have created.”
Meteorologists said not all storms will become monsters like Beryl in the coming months, noting that short-lived weather patterns can slow storm activity or even trigger it. But the hurricane highlighted how the stage is being set for other storms to have similarly explosive developments.
Another warning of what could come: Most of Beryl’s records were set in 2005, a year of unprecedented hurricane frequency and devastating storms such as Hurricane Katrina.
“Everything suggests this season will rival 2005,” said Ben Kirtman, director of the University of Miami’s Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies.
Conditions are ‘much more favorable than normal’ for hurricanes
Beryl is an extraordinary storm, not only because of how quickly it intensified, but also because of where it occurred. In previous years, early storm activity in the area where this one developed was a reliable indicator of a busy hurricane season, said Philip Klotzbach, who studies hurricanes at Colorado State University.
When it strengthened into a Category 4 storm, Beryl was in the mid-tropical Atlantic. At this time of year, in this part of the ocean — an area at the center of what’s known as the primary hurricane development region — hurricanes rarely organize or strengthen until they move farther west or north. That’s because relatively cold waters, abundant Saharan dust or dry air tend to limit early-season storm activity anywhere east of the longitude of places like the Bahamas, Cuba and Jamaica, Klotzbach said.
But none of these factors stopped Beryl. Klotzbach said it shows that “environmental conditions are much more conducive than normal” for hurricanes.
Beryl strengthened to Category 4 a week earlier than any other storm of that strength ever recorded, breaking the record set by Hurricane Dennis during the 2005 hyperstorm season. It also became the fastest storm on record before September.
This type of early-season activity in the region is a good indicator of a large number of tropical storms by late fall, he said.
In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that 17 to 25 tropical storms would form in the Atlantic basin this year, approaching the record of 27 named storms that developed in 2005.
Hurricane Beryl continues to slam into the Caribbean Sea, with its long-term path uncertain. Still, the hurricane has prompted residents along U.S. coasts to prepare.
In Texas, Galveston County officials urged residents to remain vigilant: “While there is uncertainty about Beryl’s trajectory as it reaches the Gulf, this is certainly the season to remain vigilant and prepared,” they wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Authorities farther from the storm’s path, however, used Beryl as an opportunity to urge caution. In Pinellas County, Florida, Emergency Management Director Cathie Perkins said dire forecasts for hurricane season have prompted hundreds of people to attend community hurricane risk expos in recent weeks. Today, Beryl is a reminder of how quickly a storm can intensify from a tropical storm to a major hurricane, and how important it is to be prepared, she said.
“With these storms intensifying rapidly, the time frame is shorter,” Perkins said. “Knowing that the waters were already warm this year, those are things we’re concerned about.”
Why new storms could be intense and devastating
How many of these storms intensify will depend on naturally varying conditions, including ocean temperatures and wind shear, or differences in wind speed and direction at different altitudes. But an unusually warm baseline will only encourage stronger storms, scientists said.
NOAA predicted eight to 13 storms with the potential to become hurricanes, including four to seven “major” hurricanes of at least Category 3, with maximum sustained winds between 111 and 129 mph.
“Will all the storms be intense? Maybe not,” said Marjahn Finlayson, a climatologist in the Bahamas. “But will we see more major hurricanes this year than other years? It’s very likely.”
For example, meteorologists are monitoring another tropical system in the central Atlantic that could follow a similar path to Beryl. But after Beryl passed through that part of the tropics, much of the energy that allowed it to strengthen has since dissipated, Kirtman said.
It’s too early to tell whether some short-lived conditions contributed to Beryl’s intensity, which may be less prevalent with other storms, he added. But the overall situation in the tropics remains conducive to cyclone formation, and that will likely become more the case, he added.
Along with the normal summer warming, a La Niña-type weather pattern is expected to develop in late summer or early fall. La Niña is known to promote hurricanes in the Atlantic because it tends to reduce wind shear.
“I have a feeling we’re going to see stronger storms this year,” Kirtman said. “This is just the beginning.”
Additionally, these storms could also cause more damage than normal due to another global warming-related disaster: coral death. As temperatures soared to record highs last summer, corals on the world’s third-largest reef in Florida struggled to survive a heatwave so intense that scientists had to broaden the scale they use to measure coral bleaching.
Coral reefs act as storm surge barriers, providing protection on land from wind-driven surges. If large swathes of reef are now dead, that barrier could be weakened, Finlayson said.
Amanda Coletta and Matthew Cappucci contributed to this report.
