Tracking Hurricane Beryl: Where in the US the category 5 storm is likely to hit

Hurricane Beryl is expected to hit Texas later this week, according to a forecast model.

The monster storm continues to move across the Caribbean as a Category 5 hurricane, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

At least four people have died in the devastation that leveled the island of Carriacou in Grenada when it first made landfall on Monday.

The deadly hurricane is now intensifying and heading towards Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, with locals warned to prepare for the same life-threatening winds.

Current models indicate the superstorm will move toward Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula at 165 mph (265 km/h) on Thursday evening.

However, Americans are urged to remain alert, with some meteorologists predicting the storm will move north toward the Gulf Coast on Sunday.

Beryl is the first Category 5 storm ever to form in the Atlantic Ocean, a move meteorologists say bodes ill for the rest of the U.S. hurricane season.

On Tuesday morning, the storm was located about 300 miles southeast of Isla Beata, Dominican Republic. Its winds were 165 mph and it was moving west-northwest at 22 mph.

Whether the US will also end up in this chaos depends on the high pressure region that currently lies over the Gulf Coast.

According to a model, if the pressure shifts eastward, the storm could drift north, which could impact residents in southeast Texas.

‘The most likely scenario is that the storm will move west towards Mexico,’ AccuWeather Alex DaSilva, chief hurricane forecaster, said:

“However, it is critical to realize that if high pressure weakens over the Southeast, the storm could move further north and potentially impact the Gulf Coast directly.”

“We really can’t rule out the possibility that the storm will try to move north across the Gulf of Mexico. It really depends on where it hits the Yucatan Peninsula,” said hurricane expert Dr. Levi Cowan of Tropical Tidbits.

The National Hurricane Center said Beryl was expected to weaken on Tuesday but is expected to be about hurricane strength when it passes Jamaica on Wednesday, the Cayman Islands on Thursday and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Friday.

The center warned that Beryl was also expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surges to Jamaica. Authorities warned residents in flood-prone areas to prepare to evacuate.

“I encourage all Jamaicans to treat the hurricane as a serious threat,” Prime Minister Andrew Holness said in a public address Monday night. “But this is not a time to panic.”

A tropical storm warning was issued for the entire southern coast of Hispaniola, an island bordering Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

As the storm raged across the Caribbean Sea, rescue crews in the southeastern Caribbean spread out across the region to assess the extent of the damage Hurricane Beryl had caused after it made landfall as a Category 4 storm on Carriacou, an island in Grenada.

Authorities said three people were killed in Grenada and another in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

According to Kerryne James, Minister of Climate Resilience, Environment and Renewable Energy, one person died in Grenada after a tree fell on a house.

She said the nearby islands of Carriacou and Petit Martinique suffered the most damage and that water, food and baby formula were a priority there.

An emergency team was expected to travel to Carriacou on Tuesday morning.

“The situation is grim,” Grenada Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said at a news conference on Tuesday.

“There is no power and there is almost complete destruction of homes and buildings on the island. The roads are impassable and in many cases they are closed due to the large amount of debris strewn all over the streets.”

Mitchell added: “The possibility of further deaths remains a grim reality as movement remains severely restricted.”

Meanwhile, Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said Ninety percent of the homes on Union Island were destroyed, and “similar levels of destruction” were expected on Myreau and Canouan islands.

The last major hurricane to hit the southeastern Caribbean was Hurricane Ivan 20 years ago, which killed dozens of people in Grenada.

Grenada resident Roy O’Neale, 77, tells how he lost his home to Ivan and rebuilt it stronger. His current home sustained only minimal damage from Hurricane Beryl.

“I could feel the wind whistling, and then for about two hours, it was really, really scary at times,” he said. “The branches of the trees were flying everywhere.”

Prime Minister Mia Mottley said at least 20 fishing boats have sunk in Barbados after the island was hit by high winds.

“I am absolutely devastated,” said Vichelle Clark King as she surveyed her damaged shop in the capital, Bridgetown, filled with sand and water.

According to Philip Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, Beryl has broken several records, including being the hurricane that formed farthest east in the tropical Atlantic in June.

According to hurricane expert Sam Lillo, the storm grew from a tropical depression to a major hurricane in just 42 hours, a feat that has only happened to six other Atlantic hurricanes, and never before in September.

Beryl is the second named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through November 30.

Weather experts warn that this phenomenon will likely be disastrous for the remainder of the hurricane season in the US and beyond.

“It is the earliest Category 5 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Central America,” said Clare Nullis, a spokesperson for the World Meteorological Organization.

“It sets a precedent for what we fear is going to be a very, very, very active and very dangerous hurricane season that will impact the entire basin.”

According to Anne-Claire Fontaine, a scientific officer with the WMO Tropical Cyclone Programme, one of the reasons Beryl is developing so early in the season is warmer ocean temperatures.

‘The Main Development Region (MDR), the place in the ocean where hurricanes develop… is the warmest on record.’

Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Alberto made landfall in northeastern Mexico, killing four people.