After devastating Jamaica and the Windward Islands, Hurricane Beryl is heading toward Mexico and possibly the U.S. Its devastating winds and storm surge have destroyed homes, knocked out power and killed at least eight people.
The storm, which was downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane on Thursday morning, remains a “major hurricane” with maximum winds of 120 mph (195 km/h).
You can follow Hurricane Beryl’s live stream here.
Beryl took a deadly path across Jamaica, Grenada and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, destroying buildings and killing at least eight people, including one in Jamaica and three in Venezuela, where the hurricane’s outer rings brought heavy rainfall.
On Thursday morning, the hurricane’s winds and rains were still battering Jamaica; Prime Minister Andrew Holness extended the curfew until 6am.
The hurricane passed Jamaica on Thursday before moving past the Caymon Islands and toward the Yucatan Peninsula and Belize.
Beryl is expected to weaken somewhat over the next day or two, but will still be at or near major hurricane strength when it enters Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula late Thursday or Friday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
Authorities in Mexico warned the storm could make a “rare” double-hit.
Mexico’s Civil Protection Agency head Laura Velazquez said the hurricane was expected to reach a relatively uninhabited stretch of the Caribbean coast between Tulum and the inland town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto.
There are very few resorts or hotels in the area south of Tulum, as the coastline here consists largely of lagoons and mangroves.
The hurricane is expected to weaken to a tropical storm as it passes the Yucatan Peninsula and re-emerge at storm strength into the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend.
Beryl is expected to reach Mexican territory a second time later in the Gulf coast states of Veracruz or Tamaulipas, near the Texas border, Velazquez said.
If Hurricane Beryl maintains its strength, it has the potential to hit southern Texas and Louisiana over the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.
Beryl has previously broken records, first becoming the earliest Category 4 hurricane in the Atlantic, and then the earliest Category 5 hurricane.
Grenada Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said authorities in the Windward Islands, where Beryl first made landfall, had received “reports of widespread destruction and devastation in Carriacou and Petite Martinique”.
“Within half an hour Carriacou was leveled.”
A total of eight deaths have been confirmed, with the first in Jamaica on Thursday, while four people died in the Windward Islands, including one in Grenada’s capital St George, when a tree fell on a house.
Three deaths have been reported in Venezuela as rain from the outer rings of Hurricane Beryl caused flooding and landslides.
“We hope there are no other deaths or injuries,” Mitchell said. “But keep in mind the difficulty we had in Carriacou and Petite Martinique.”
Authorities are scrambling to assess the situation on the islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique, where there were initial reports of extensive damage, but communications remained difficult, he said.
On Union Island in the Grenadines, about 90 percent of homes were damaged or destroyed, he said.
Beryl became the second storm to reach Category 5 in July; Emily did so in mid-July 2005.
It became the earliest storm to reach Category 4 status early Sunday and the first to do so in June.
The hurricane was downgraded to a category 3 hurricane on Sunday evening, but gained strength and speed over warm ocean water and was upgraded to a category 4 hurricane on Monday morning.
With cyclone set to hit St Vincent and the Grenadines over the Carnival weekend, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves on Sunday urged residents to postpone their celebrations and prepare for Beryl to strike.
Mr Gonsalves ordered bars to close early and postponed some carnival events. Cycle News.
Airports in Barbados, Grenada and Saint Lucia were also closed Sunday night in preparation for the storm, but Maurice Bishop International Airport in Grenada reopened on Tuesday.
The storm is expected to remain a major hurricane as it moves through the Caribbean, and a Tropical Storm warning is in effect for the southern coast of Hispaniola.
A Hurricane Watch was also issued Tuesday for the area from Puerto Costa Maya to Cancun along Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, which includes Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac, as well as Cozumel.
Beryl is expected to weaken after it reaches Mexico. But a computer model of Hurricane Beryl’s many possible paths, known as a “spaghetti” model, has shown the direction the devastating storm could take as it moves toward the southeastern United States through the bathtub-warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
The model showed the storm potentially blowing toward the Gulf Coast and eastern Texas and Louisiana.
Global warming caused by burning coal, oil and gas is raising temperatures on land and in the ocean. Warmer ocean waters fuel hurricanes. In Beryl’s region, ocean temperatures are 2 to 3 degrees Celsius above normal for this time of year, levels that are not usually seen until September.