HOUSTON — Hurricane Beryl strengthened to Category 5 status late Monday after it ripped doors, windows and roofs off homes across the southeastern Caribbean with devastating winds and storm surge fueled by the Atlantic's record warmth. It then strengthened more overnight.
Beryl made landfall on the island of Carriacou in Grenada as the earliest Category 4 storm in the Atlantic, then late in the day the National Hurricane Center in Miami said its winds had increased to Category 5 strength. Fluctuations in strength, and later a significant weakening, were forecast as the storm pushes further into the Caribbean in the coming days.
The forecast track from the Hurricane Center takes the storm into the Yucatan, then back into the southern Gulf of Mexico as a much-weakened tropical storm. If this forecast verifies, Houston/Galveston would see minimal impacts -- increased chance for scattered showers, minor coastal flooding, beach erosion and rip currents, much like what Alberto did in June.
The storm is still a long way out and forecasts can change. Watch the weather multiple times a day this week so no one gets caught off guard if things change with this well-organized storm.
CURRENT LOCATION/PATH: With the 4 a.m. Tuesday update, Beryl was a Category 5 storm with maximum sustained winds of 165 mph, moving west-northwest at 22 mph. (Update in Spanish).
Hurricane Beryl forecast cone
Hurricane Beryl spaghetti models
“The eye has shrunk in diameter as it’s gone over the past six hours,” said KHOU 11 Chief Meteorologist David Pau Monday during his 10 p.m. forecast. “Six hours ago, the diameter was 20 miles. Now that diameter is 15 miles. The shrinking of the eye, think of these storms as an ice skater, spinning and then when they pull their arms in, that’s the eye getting smaller, that diameter gets smaller. It’s the conservation of angular momentum and the eye gets tighter, the storm spins faster.
RELATED: KHOU 11 Chief Meteorologist David Paul on what Texans should be watching with Hurricane Beryl
As for why it’s getting stronger, Paul said there’s nothing yet stopping it from doing so.
“It’s completely un-sheared,” he said. “It’s standing up straight and down. There’s no vertical shear to tilt it over and disrupt the circulation. We’ve got plenty of warm water and so you have a storm that is just in a perfect spot to develop into a Cat. 5.”
Paul said wind shear and mild and upper level winds blowing across the storm will tilt it and that’s what’s expected to happen going forward.
You can see Chief Meteorologist David Paul's 10 p.m. Monday forecast here.
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Hurricane season 2024 forecast
Colorado State University released its forecast update for the 2024 hurricane season, maintaining that it will be a busy one. In April, they predicted that we could see 23 named storms and 11 hurricanes with five becoming major hurricanes. They blame the extremely warm tropical Atlantic and likely “La Niña” as the primary reasons.
RELATED: Colorado State University releases hurricane season forecast update, maintains it will be a busy one
On average, the Atlantic sees about 14 named storms each hurricane season. Of those, seven become hurricanes with three becoming major (Category 3 or above) storms.
Why such an active season? Dr. Phil Klotzbach, lead forecaster at CSU, says it's because of two main factors -- above-normal sea surface temperatures and expected La Niña conditions this summer. The warm water adds more energy to the tropics, making fuel for these storms more available. But perhaps more importantly, La Niña usually reduces vertical wind shear.
Winds blowing across a developing or mature tropical system can keep a budding system from developing and weaken stronger storms. This reduces the total storm count. But when La Niña conditions are in place, this wind shear is often reduced. That, combined with the warm ocean surface temps is why Dr. Klotzbach believes more storms than normal will form.