Tropical storm heading towards Caribbean could become year’s first hurricane

Tropical Storm Beryl is heading towards the south-east Caribbean and could strengthen into the year’s first hurricane before reaching Barbados late Sunday.

A hurricane watch was issued for Barbados as the island’s meteorological service warned of flash flooding and power outages and said the storm’s centre was forecast to pass some 26 miles south of the island.

Early Saturday, Beryl was located about 975 miles east-southeast of Barbados, with maximum sustained winds of 50mph. It was moving west at 21mph.

“We need to be ready,” Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley said in a public address late Friday. “You and I know when these things happen, it is better to plan for the worst and pray for the best.”

She noted that thousands of people are in Barbados for the Twenty20 World Cup cricket final, with India and South Africa playing in the capital, Bridgetown, on Saturday.

Beryl is the second named storm in what is predicted to be a busy hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30 in the Atlantic. Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Alberto came ashore in north-east Mexico with heavy rains that resulted in four deaths.

“The development of a tropical storm this far east in the tropical Atlantic is uncommon, though not unprecedented,” wrote Michael Lowry, a Florida-based hurricane expert, in a forecast. “Only five named storms on record have formed in the tropical Atlantic east of the Caribbean.”

Of those, only one hurricane of record has formed east of the Caribbean in June, he added.

Mark Spence, manager of a hostel in Barbados, said that he was calm about the approaching storm.

“It’s the season. You can get a storm any time,” he said. “I’m always prepared. I always have enough food in my house.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts the 2024 hurricane season is likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast calls for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.

An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.

Beryl is expected to drop up to six inches of rain in Barbados and nearby islands, and a high surf warning of waves up to 13 feet was in effect.

The storm is approaching the south-east Caribbean just days after the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago reported major flooding in the capital of Port-of-Spain as a result of an unrelated weather event.