Beryl is forecast to unload damaging winds, torrential rainfall and dangerous storm surge over a significant portion of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, a tourist area that includes Tulum and Cancún, as it makes landfall on Friday morning.
The storm will then emerge in the Gulf of Mexico and impact parts of northeastern Mexico and South Texas this weekend, after it pounded Jamaica and other Caribbean islands, killing at least nine people in the region and damaging homes.
- Tracking Beryl: Data from an Air Force reconnaissance plane indicates that Beryl has reached winds of 115 mph as of 9:30 p.m, making it a Category 3 storm once again.
- Headed for Mexico: Beryl will make landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula early Friday as a hurricane and emerge into the southern Gulf of Mexico early Saturday as a tropical storm. The storm will likely be able to regain some intensity over the warm waters of the Gulf as it nears another landfall on the coast of Mexico or Texas early next week.
- Preparations: A red alert of “maximum danger” has been issued for residents in the west, east and center of Mexico’s Quintana Roo state, where Beryl is expected to make landfall, Governor Mara Lezama said Thursday night. More than 8,600 troops from the army, air force and national guard have been deployed in the Yucatán Peninsula to provide support.
- Dangerous conditions: Beryl was previously the earliest Category 5 storm on record in the Atlantic. It was also the strongest storm to impact Jamaica in over 15 years.
- Rapid intensification: The abnormally warm ocean waters that facilitated Beryl’s intensification show that this hurricane season will be far from normal due to global warming caused by fossil fuel pollution.
- Flights affected: The tourist destination of Tulum is also under a red alert and its international airport was shut at 3 p.m. ET. on Thursday. The airport in Cancún remains open but about 348 flights have either been canceled or suspended, Quintana Roo governor Mara Lezama said.
Source.- CONAGUA
