Hurricane Beryl, now Category 4, has Jamaica in its path; potential for Tropical Storm

Beryl became the season’s first major hurricane on Sunday, reaching Category 4 strength as it approached the Caribbean with winds topping 130 mph, forecasters said.

Beryl has strengthened rapidly since forming and is likely to bring “life-threatening winds and storm surge” on its approach to the far eastern Caribbean early Monday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

A Hurricane Hunter aircraft investigated the hurricane on Sunday, recording maximum sustained wind speeds of at least 130 mph with higher gusts. It is forecast to continue strengthening as it sweeps through the Caribbean Sea.

Jamaica, Belize and parts of Mexico were within Beryl’s cone Sunday.

The forecast for Beryl includes “a life-threatening storm surge” of as much as 6 to 9 feet and 3 to 6 inches of rain across Barbados and the Windward Islands Sunday into Monday, increasing the potential for flash flooding, according to the hurricane center.

At 8 p.m. Sunday, Hurricane Beryl was 200 miles southeast of Barbados and moving west-northwest at 18 mph.

Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 30 miles from Beryl’s center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 115 miles.

A hurricane warning is in effect for Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Tobago, and the Grenadine Islands and Grenada, while a tropical storm warning is in effect for Martinique. A tropical storm watch is in effect for Dominica, Trinidad, the Dominican Republic from Punta Palenque westward to the border with Haiti and the entire south coast of Haiti from the border of the Dominican Republic to Anse d’Hainault.

“Development this far east in late June is unusual,” the forecasters at the hurricane center said. “In fact, there have only been a few storms in history that have formed over the central or eastern tropical Atlantic this early in the year.”

Beryl is expected to remain a significant hurricane through the next five days, forecasters said Sunday.

Beryl is not expected to affect South Florida.

Meanwhile, the season’s third tropical depression formed off Mexico on Sunday at the 5 p.m. advisory. It’s possible a short-lived Tropical Storm Chris could form from a system moving across the Caribbean and headed toward inland Mexico.

Forecasters also said Sunday that a tropical wave in the eastern Atlantic off Africa could become a tropical depression by midweek as it moves toward the eastern and central Caribbean.