(Reuters) -Hurricane Beryl has become a very dangerous Category 3 storm in the Atlantic Ocean and is due to bring life-threatening winds to the Caribbean’s Windward Islands as it strengthens into Monday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The first hurricane of the 2024 season was located about 420 miles (675 km) east-southeast of Barbados on Sunday morning, with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph (155 kph), the NHC said in an advisory. It is rare for a major hurricane to appear as early in the year as June.
Beryl was forecast to strengthen into a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale by Monday, with winds that can cause “catastrophic damage.” Hurricane warnings have been issued in Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadine Islands, Grenada and Tobago.
The NHC warned those islands to brace for up to 6 inches (15 cm) of rain. It said Beryl would raise water levels by up to 9 feet (2.74 meters) above normal tide levels where the hurricane makes landfall.
Last month, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted “above-normal hurricane activity” in the Atlantic in 2024, in part due to near-record warm ocean temperatures.
It is unusual to see a major hurricane form so early in the season, which spans June 1 to Nov. 30.
If Beryl strengthens into a Category 4 hurricane as expected, it would be the earliest such hurricane on record, according to the NHC, beating Hurricane Dennis, which became a Category 4 on July 8, 2005.
(Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
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