Hurricane Beryl has gone from tropical storm to Category 4 in less than 24 hours.
Topline
The Atlantic’s first hurricane of the 2024 season rapidly intensified to a Category 4 storm Sunday morning as it moved closer to Barbados and the Windward Islands, making Hurricane Beryl the strongest storm ever this early in the Atlantic hurricane season.Key Facts
The National Hurricane Center upgraded Beryl to a Category 4 on Sunday, with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph—just hours after it became a Category 3, and less than 24 hours after it was still a tropical storm.
It is the earliest in the season a storm has ever hit Category 4 strength.
Beryl is expected to bring “devastating damage” through wind and a storm surge when it passes the Windward Islands, bringing rising water levels between 6 and 9 feet above normal tides and threatening coastal areas with intense flooding from “large and destructive waves.”
The storm is expected to weaken as it passes, or potentially makes landfall, in Jamaica by Wednesday and, by the end of the week, reaches the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico or Central America, though forecasters say it will maintain hurricane status through at least the next five days.
