Beryl Now a Major Hurricane, Likely Another Storm Forming Soon As Well

June 30, 2024

What I once thought would be just a squally weather system has now broken several records. As of 2 p.m. today Atlantic Standard Time (1 hour ahead of CDT), hurricane Beryl is a category 4 major hurricane. It was already one of the earliest named storms on record to form so far east for this time of year. When it became a major hurricane earlier today, it was only the third category 3 storm to achieve that strength in the month of June and the first to do so east of the Lesser Antilles. Now that it is a category 4 storm it stands alone in all categories. No category 4 storm has ever formed this early (in our known records). If this is a precursor to what the rest of the season may like it is not a good sign.

The official forecast from the NHC is below. Beryl is forecast to continue moving west-northwest for the foreseeable future. Beryl is expected to strengthen some more before it starts to slowly weaken (hopefully) in about 24 hours as it crosses the Caribbean over the next week. It's too early to rule it out, but right now a track into the northern/eastern Gulf looks less likely than other possibilities. A few ensemble members do show some curves to the north maybe 5-6 days from now but so far they stay mostly in the central to western Gulf. Most tracks currently continue to take the storm west-northwest towards the Yucatan Peninsula. If Beryl were to track on the northern side of the track envelope that curve could happen sooner, but again that looks like a low probability at this time. I think we'll have better confidence around midweek.

There are still a few other things going on in the tropics. The system behind Beryl (Invest 96L), will likely become a tropical depression sometime in the next several days if not a named storm. Models show a similar track as what we saw when Beryl was still forming, mostly west-northwest with a few curving to the north once it is in the Caribbean. It is possible that this will become a hurricane as well, but I haven't spent much time looking at the intensity forecasts. The system in the southwest Gulf is close to making a run at last minute development, but there is no change to the overall forecast and it remains no threat to the US.

That's it for today. I'm honestly still processing Beryl's rapid intensification and what that may mean about the rest of the season. In a video just the other day, Dr. Levi Cowan of Tropical Tidbits stated (I'm paraphrasing) that the thermodynamic environment wasn't supportive of rapid strengthening or a storm of this strength in this part of the Atlantic. He's a leading expert in this field of meteorology so clearly there's some lack of knowledge or understanding we still need to close the gap on.

Have a good week, I'll give you an update in a few days.

Chris