KINGSTON / PORT-AU-PRINCE:

Hurricane Beryl barreled toward Jamaica as a powerful Category 4 storm on Tuesday, threatening to dump rain on parts of Hispaniola after leaving at least three people dead on smaller islands in the eastern Caribbean.

Tropical storm conditions were expected on parts of the southern coasts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Tuesday evening, according to an advisory from the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).

“Beryl is expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge to Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands Wednesday night and Thursday,” the NHC said. A hurricane warning is in effect for both places.

In Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, which is in the grips of entrenched gang violence and an ongoing humanitarian crisis, strong winds took residents by surprise on Tuesday afternoon.

The country’s southwestern peninsula could get 4-8 inches (10-20 cm) of rain, with as much as 12 inches in some places, the NHC said. New Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille warned residents to take precautions and stay alert.

The unusually early hurricane, whose rapid strengthening scientists said was likely fueled by human-caused climate change, is expected to still be a hurricane when it passes near Jamaica and the Cayman Islands later this week.

Beryl, the 2024 Atlantic season’s first hurricane and the earliest storm on record to reach the highest category on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, felled power lines and unleashed flash floods across smaller islands.

The storm hit St. Vincent and the Grenadines especially hard, according to Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves.

“The hurricane has come and gone, and it has left in its wake immense destruction,” he said. On one island in the Grenadines archipelago, Union Island, 90% of homes had been “severely damaged or destroyed,” he added.

The prime minister confirmed one death and said more fatalities could be confirmed in the coming days.

In a video briefing on Tuesday, Grenada’s prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, stressed that Carriacou and Petite Martinique, two of the three islands that make up the country, bore the brunt of the natural disaster.

“The situation is grim. There is no power. There is almost complete destruction of homes and buildings,” he said, citing impassable roads due to downed power lines and destroyed fuel stations crimping supplies.

Mitchell said at least two deaths were attributed to the impact of Beryl so far.

The hurricane, packing maximum sustained winds of 150 miles per hour (241 kph), is currently located about 360 miles (579 km) east-southeast of the Jamaican capital of Kingston, according to the NHC.

The Miami-based hurricane centre estimates that the massive weather system is moving toward the west-northwest at a speed of 22 mph (35 kph).

In Jamaica, men hauled fishing boats out of the water and tied them down in preparation for the hurricane’s arrival, while others noted there was still time to prepare on Tuesday morning.

“We Jamaicans don’t take things serious,” said Standford Pusey, as he showed off items secured with plastic tarps.

In Fort-de-France on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, north of St. Vincent, a video shared on social media showed heavy flooding in the streets as locals attempted to clear away debris.

In addition to Haiti’s southern coast, the NHC also posted a hurricane watch for Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, dotted with beach resorts popular with tourists.

Ahead of the storm’s approach expected Thursday night, Mexico’s defense ministry said the army, air force, and national guard had activated emergency response protocols in the three Yucatan states, with 120 shelters opened and nearly 4,900 troops on guard on the peninsula.

The unusually early timing and rapid intensification of the storm is partly due to warmer ocean temperatures, scientists say.

Climate change likely contributed to Beryl’s early formation, while also driving how quickly it intensified, according to scientists surveyed by Reuters, which could provide an unsettling preview of future storms.

Global warming has helped push temperatures in the North Atlantic to record highs, said Christopher Rozoff, an atmospheric scientist at the U.S.-based National Center for Atmospheric Research. The warmer waters lead to more evaporation, which fuels more intense hurricanes featuring higher wind speeds, he said.

Beryl jumped from a Category 1 to a Category 4 storm in under 10 hours, according to Andra Garner, a Rowan University meteorologist. That marked the fastest intensification ever recorded before September, the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, she added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Hurricane Beryl unleashed powerful winds over the Eastern Caribbean on July 1, downing power lines and ripping roofs from buildings, as scientists argue that climate change likely added to how quickly the unusually fierce, early storm formed.

Beryl struck the southeastern Caribbean at Category 4 strength on the Saffir-Simpson five-point scale, spiraling toward the Caribbean’s Windward Islands and threatening devastating flooding as potentially deadly winds picked up speed.

“This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation. Take action now to protect your life!” the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in a post on Monday, urging residents in Grenada, the Grenadine Islands as well as Carriacou Island to shelter in place due to an expected rapid increase in wind force.

Across many islands that dot the Eastern Caribbean, residents boarded up windows, stocked up on food and filled their cars with fuel as the storm drew closer.

The Miami-based hurricane center noted that hurricane-force winds spread out from Beryl’s well-defined eye by up to 40 miles (64 km), with still-dangerous tropical storm force winds extending outward by another 125 miles (201 km).

Beryl’s rapid rise marks an unusually fierce and early start to this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, including the earliest Category 4 storm on record.

Scientists surveyed by Reuters see the powerful hurricane as a harbinger of an unusually active hurricane season made possible by record-high temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean.

“Climate change is loading the dice for more intense hurricanes to form,” said Christopher Rozoff, an atmospheric scientist at the United States’ National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

Andra Garner, a New Jersey-based meteorologist, noted that Beryl jumped from a Category 1 to a Category 4 storm in less than 10 hours.

Leaders in the region sought to prepare locals for the worst, including the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves. He said he was expecting a natural disaster that could continue for days.

“We have to wait this monster out,” he said in an address to the nation.

In the capital of Kingstown, conditions around the main harbor worsened on Monday morning, with some damage to buildings reported, caused by intensifying winds. Video from the city showed waves crashing over a seawall and palm trees along the shore battered by the wind.

Beryl’s maximum sustained wind speed had risen to 150 miles (241 km) per hour by Monday afternoon, with the weather phenomenon located about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of Grenada.

Beryl is moving west-northwest at a speed of 20 mph (32 kph), the U.S. hurricane center said, and is forecast to cross many of the central Caribbean’s most populated islands through Wednesday as it barrels toward the Gulf of Mexico.

The core of the hurricane will likely bring “potentially catastrophic wind damage” as it moves through the Windward Islands, with St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada most at risk, according to the center.

In the St. Vincent community of Prospect, damage reports included roofs ripped off of buildings, as well as power cuts in other parts of the island.

A Reuters reporter on Grenada said power was down across the island.

Climate change’s fingerprints

Global warming has helped push temperatures in the North Atlantic to all-time highs, causing more surface water to evaporate, which in turn provides additional fuel for more intense hurricanes with higher wind speeds.

Scientists have already predicted that events like Beryl will grow more likely with climate change, meteorologist Garner said. Her research has shown that as water temperatures rose over the last five decades, it has become more than twice as likely for storms to jump from weak storms to major hurricanes in less than 24 hours.

The hurricane center said hurricane warnings were in effect for St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada, and a hurricane watch was issued for Jamaica.

In nearby Tobago, shelters were opened and schools closed on Monday.

“The eastern side of the island got the most battering and the seas remain dangerous. Fisherfolk got sufficient warning and were able to remove their boats from the water,” said Curtis Douglas, President of the All Tobago Fisherfolk Association.

Only limited damage to hotel properties on the island has been reported so far, according to a local hotel and tourism group.

The hurricane is expected to bring 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 cm) of rain across Barbados and the Windward Islands throughout the day on Monday, with some areas seeing as much as 10 inches (25 cm), especially in the Grenadines, Tobago and Grenada.

In May, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic this year, also pointing to unseasonably high ocean temperatures.

Canadian travel blogger “Khanadians” Nauman Khan, in a video posted from his hotel early on Monday morning while on vacation in Barbados, described “really massive waves.”

He said he had been talking with local residents. “Just knowing that people were taking it in their stride, this is a part of life in the West Indies … it gave us some reassurance.”

Men walk at an ocean pier as Hurricane Lidia barrels towards Mexico’s Pacific coast, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico October 10, 2023.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Hurricane Lidia made landfall as an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm on October 10 evening with winds of 140 mph (220 kph) near Mexico’s Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Lidia’s eye appeared to have reached land near Las Penitas in the western state of Jalisco. The area is a sparsely populated peninsula. The storm was moving south of Puerto Vallarta, which could cushion the blow on the resort.

Jalisco Gov. Enrique Alfaro said via the platform X an hour and a half after Lidia made landfall that the storm had generated “extraordinary rain and high surf” in various places, but that so far there were no reports of injuries or deaths.

The State had 23 shelters open, he said.

In 2015, Hurricane Patricia, a Category 5 hurricane, also made landfall on the same sparsely-populated stretch of coastline between the resort of Puerto Vallarta and major port of Manzanillo.

Lidia was expected to rapidly weaken over the mountains and dissipate, but was still capable of soaking the region with heavy rain. Forecasters predicted Lidia could still be a Category 1 hurricane when it brushed by Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, around midnight.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center forecast rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches with localized totals of 12 inches possible in some places in the state of Nayarit, southern portions of the state of Sinaloa, and coastal areas of Jalisco.

Local authorities canceled classes in communities around the coast. The expected impact comes one day after Tropical Storm Max hit the southern Pacific coast, hundred of miles away, and then dissipated. Rains from Max washed out part of a coastal highway in the southern state of Guerrero.

Lidia was centered on October 10 about 35 miles (55 kilometres) south-southwest of Puerto Vallarta and was moving east-northeast at about 16 mph (26 kph).

The hurricane center warned of possible flash flooding and storm surge from the hurricane.