To everyone’s surprise, the tiny tropical depression that formed far out in the eastern Atlantic Ocean on Thursday became Hurricane Beryl in just 18 hours. Not only is that rate of strengthening impressive by itself, its formation is also 40 days ahead of the average date of a season’s first hurricane.
While hurricane-strength, Beryl is a very small storm. Tropical-storm-force winds extend an average of just 30 miles from the center. Beryl is about 1,140 miles east of the Lesser Antilles with 75-mph peak sustained winds. It is forecast to continue tracking toward the west-northwest, reaching the islands that were ravaged by Hurricane Maria last September by Monday.
Thankfully, Beryl will be nothing like Maria. While it could strengthen some in the very short term, it is forecast to weaken substantially before reaching the Lesser Antilles early Monday. It will not be a destructive storm, but some downpours and strong winds cannot be ruled out over the islands.
Forecast models have a difficult time projecting small storms such as Beryl. They tend to strengthen and weaken quickly, and their movement can be erratic.
By around next Tuesday, however, they project the storm’s remnants over or near Hispaniola, where it could produce some heavy rainfall. Beyond that, it may dissipate entirely.
In addition to its miniature size and rapid rate of intensification, Beryl also is notable for gaining hurricane strength so far east in the Atlantic so early in the season. Beryl is the easternmost pre-August hurricane to develop on record for storms with an African pedigree. Usually, environmental conditions in the deep tropics are too unwelcoming to systems coming off Africa this early on.
Beryl is the first July hurricane to form in the Atlantic since Bertha in 2014.