Beryl Set To Rapidly Intensify On Approach To Texas Due To Hot Ocean Temperatures
HuffPost
The waters in the Gulf of Mexico are warm enough for the early-season storm to rapidly intensify, as it has several times before.
With its unprecedented tear through the ultrawarm waters of the southeast Caribbean, Beryl turned meteorologists’ worst fears of a souped-up hurricane season into grim reality. Now it’s Texas turn.
Beryl hit Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula as a Category 2 hurricane on Friday, then weakened to a tropical storm. It’s expected to reach southern Texas by Sunday night or Monday morning, regaining hurricane status as it crosses over the toasty Gulf of Mexico.
National Hurricane Center senior specialist Jack Beven said Beryl is likely to make landfall somewhere between Brownsville and a bit north of Corpus Christi Monday. The hurricane center forecasts it will hit as a strong Category 1 storm, but wrote “this could be conservative if Beryl stays over water longer” than expected.
The waters in the Gulf of Mexico are warm enough for the early-season storm to rapidly intensify, as it has several times before.
“We should not be surprised if this is rapidly intensifying before landfall and it could become a major hurricane,” said Weather Underground co-founder Jeff Masters, a former government hurricane meteorologist who flew into storms. “Category 2 may be more likely but we should not dismiss a Category 3 possibility.”