Category 5 Hurricane Beryl Continues To Amaze Amid Windward Island Destruction

Formidable Category 5 Hurricane Beryl late
Tuesday morning over the Caribbean. 

 Despite the idea this was impossible at the very start of July, Hurricane Beryl last night grew to a Category 5 storm - the most intense possible - with top sustained winds of an incredible 165 mph. 

This, after trashing some of the Windward Islands as a high end Category 4 yesterday with sustained winds of 150 mph. 

Category 5 hurricanes are relatively rare in the Atlantic Ocean, but have been becoming a little more common in recent years. 

However, such powerhouses were considered virtually impossible until August and September, when oceans reach their peak temperatures and atmospheric conditions are most primed to pump a hurricane to its maximum potential.

With ocean temperatures in and near the Caribbean Sea at record highs and at readings more typical for around Labor Day, Beryl was able to become the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record for so early in the season.

This, after setting records for the earliest major hurricane known to have formed east of the Windward Islands. When it was just getting its act together last week, it was also the furthest east in the Atlantic a tropical storm is known to have popped up in June.  

All this is a combination of a perfect set of conditions to make Beryl a monster, and probably climate change, which is serving to warm oceans more and more. This creates better and better incubators for hurricanes. 

DAMAGE AND FUTURE

As you might expect, Beryl devastated the islands it hit on Monday.

Says the Washington Post:

"Grenada and the nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines were reeling from a storm that probably will be the region's most intense hurricane on record.

'In half an hour, Carriacou was flattened,' Grenadian Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said Monday. 

At least one person died on St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the prime minister said Monday evening. 'There may well be more fatalities,' Ralph Gonsalves said in an address to the nation, adding that hundreds of houses had been severely damaged or destroyed in the country, including on the main island of St. Vincent."

Latest reports as of early this afternoon suggest seven deaths have already been reported in association with the storm.

Beryl has finally reached peak strength. I can't image it possibly getting any stronger anyway. But stronger upper level winds will steadily weaken Beryl as it moves west to northwest across the Caribbean Sea toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.  

The weakening trend will start this afternoon, but Beryl will still be a pretty intense hurricane as it passes over or  close by Jamaica tomorrow. By then, it will be a little less powerful than it was this morning, but still an intense, destructive hurricane. 

Beryl will eventually probably pass over the Yucatan Peninsula and menace northeastern Mexico or southern Texas. But by then it might be reduced to a tropical storm or a much less formidable hurricane than it is now.