Just before midday Sunday, Hurricane Beryl became the earliest hurricane to reach category 4 intensity in the calendar year.
The major hurricane, with winds of 130 mph and a pressure of 962 mb, surpassed 2005's Hurricane Dennis with this distinction.
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WATCH HEREHurricane Dennis reached category 4 intensity on July 7th with winds at 135 mph and a pressure of 950 mb. At that time, the storm was positioned in the Caribbean Sea, between Cuba and Jamaica.
Not only is it exceptionally rare for category 4 Beryl to form this early in the season, the location, a few hundred miles southeast of the Windward Islands, is noteworthy, too.
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Beryl's rapid rise in wind speed and drop in pressure coincides with ideal atmospheric conditions usually reserved for the peak of the season, around September.
Exceptionally warm sea surface temperatures and little to no inhibitive wind shear allowed Beryl to go from a tropical storm Saturday afternoon to a major hurricane Sunday.
This rapid intensification, from Saturday morning to Sunday morning, was anticipated and forecast by the National Hurricane Center.
However, it was through constant monitoring from Hurricane Hunter aircraft that Beryl was sampled and bumped up to a category 4 hurricane, some 35 minutes after the NHC’s 11 am advisory. That forecast called for intensification to category 4 over the next 24-hour period, just not immediately following the advisory.
Hurricane warnings remain in effect for the Windward Islands, from Grenada to St. Lucia, including Barbados. Those islands are being encouraged to prepare for potentially catastrophic impacts overnight, through late-day Monday, as the storm moves into the Caribbean Sea with a forward speed around 20 mph.
Beryl is not a threat to South Florida but is expected to maintain its major hurricane classification as it treks across the central and western Caribbean late-week.
