Hurricane Beryl wreaks havoc on Caribbean islands: How hot waters fuel a 'monster-like' storm (2024)

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Hurricane Beryl has grown explosively into an unprecedented early whopper of a storm.

The development shows the literal hot water the Atlantic and Caribbean are in right now and the kind of season ahead.

At least one person has died after Beryl made landfall in several countries in the Caribbean.

Forecasters had already predicted months ago it was going to be a nasty year.

“This is the type of storm that we expect this year, these outlier things that happen when and where they shouldn’t,” University of Miami tropical weather researcher Brian McNoldy told The Associated Press.

Broken records

Numerous records were broken even before Hurricane Beryl’s strong hurricane-level winds reached land.

According to five hurricane specialists who spoke with The Associated Press, the strong storm is behaving more like the monsters that develop during the height of hurricane season since the water is either as hot or hotter than it usually gets in September.

With winds of at least 209 kilometres per hour, Beryl broke the record for the earliest recorded Category four, which occurred in June.

It was also the first storm to intensify quickly, with wind gusts reaching 102 kilometres per hour in just 24 hours, transforming it from an unnamed depression to a Category four in under 48 hours.

According to the National Storm Centre, it intensified to a Category five late on Monday, making it the first storm of that intensity ever recorded in the Atlantic basin and just the second Category five hurricane to occur in July after Hurricane Emily in 2005.

For those uninitiated, the maximum wind speed for a Category five storm is 250 kilometres per hour.

Kristen Corbosiero, an atmospheric scientist at the University at Albany, told the news agency that Beryl is travelling in an unusually southern direction, particularly for a strong hurricane.

With winds of high to 240 kilometres per hour, it made landfall on the island of Carriacou on Monday.

It is predicted to tear through the southeast Caribbean islands.

The late Monday forecast indicates that Hurricane Beryl might hold onto its current strength for one more day before diminishing considerably.

How hot water fuels hurricane

The water temperature around Hurricane Beryl is about one to two degrees Celsius above normal at 29 degrees Celsius, which “is great if you are a hurricane,” Klotzbach said.

Storm clouds and thunderstorms that develop into hurricanes are fed by warm water. According to Corbosiero of the University of Albany, the likelihood that warmer water and, thus, warmer air at the storm’s base will cause it to ascend higher in the atmosphere and produce deeper thunderstorms is greater.

Sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Caribbean “are above what the average September (peak season) temperature should be looking at the last 30-year average,” Masters said.

It’s not just hot water at the surface that matters.

The ocean heat content — which measures deeper water that storms need to keep powering up — is way beyond record levels for this time of year and at what the September peak should be, McNoldy said.

“So when you get all that heat energy you can expect some fireworks,” Masters said.

This year, there’s also a significant difference between water temperature and upper air temperature throughout the tropics.

The greater that difference is, the more likely it becomes that storms will form and get bigger, said MIT hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel. “The Atlantic relative to the rest of the tropics is as warm as I’ve seen,” he said.

A stormy season ahead

“Beryl is unprecedentedly strange. It is so far outside the climatology that you look at it and you say, ‘How did this happen in June?’” said Weather Underground co-founder Jeff Masters, a former government hurricane meteorologist who flew into storms.

Forecasters predicted months ago it was going to be a nasty year and now they are comparing it to record-busy 1933 and deadly 2005 — the year of Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Dennis.

“This is the type of storm that we expect this year, these outlier things that happen when and where they shouldn’t,” University of Miami tropical weather researcher Brian McNoldy said. “Not only for things to form and intensify and reach higher intensities, but increase the likelihood of rapid intensification. All of that is just coming together right now, and this won’t be the last time.”

Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach called Hurricane Beryl “a harbinger potentially of more interesting stuff coming down the pike. Not that Beryl isn’t interesting in and of itself, but even more potential threats and more — and not just a one off — maybe several of these kinds of storms coming down later.”

The unusually hot summers

Since March 2023, the Atlantic seas have been exceptionally hot, and since April 2023, they have been record warm. According to Klotzbach, a high pressure system that often creates cooling trade winds collapsed then and hasn’t come back.

According to Corbosiero, experts disagree about the precise effects of climate change on hurricanes, but they do agree that it raises the likelihood of powerful storms like Beryl and makes them more likely to intensify quickly.

The slowdown of Atlantic ocean currents, which is probably a result of climate change, could also contribute to the warm water, according to Emanuel.

A brewing La Nina, which is a slight cooling of the Pacific that changes weather worldwide, also may be a factor. Experts say La Nina tends to depress high altitude crosswinds that decapitate hurricanes.

La Nina also usually means more hurricanes in the Atlantic and fewer in the Pacific. The Eastern Pacific had zero storms in May and June, something that’s only happened twice before, Klotzbach said.

Globally, this may be a below-average year for tropical cyclones, except in the Atlantic.

On Sunday night, Beryl went through eyewall replacement, which usually weakens a storm as it forms a new centre, Corbosiero said. But now the storm has regained its strength.

“This is sort of our worst scenario,” she said. “We’re starting early, some very severe storms… Unfortunately, it seems like it’s playing out the way we anticipated.”

With inputs from The Associated Press

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