As of Monday at 2400 GMT, Beryl was registering winds of up to 155 mph (250 km/h), according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Following the downing of power lines and flooding of streets on other Caribbean islands, Hurricane Beryl's tremendous winds increased as the strong category 4 storm raced over the southern Caribbean on Monday, bringing Jamaica closer to its path.
According to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC), Beryl hit the Caribbean area as the earliest Category 4 storm on record using the Saffir-Simpson five-point scale. As of 2400 GMT on Monday, the storm was packing gusts of up to 155 mph (250 kmh).
According to the NHC, Barbados and the Windward Islands could anticipate 3-6 inches (8-15 cm) of rain from the storm on Monday night. Some places, particularly in the Grenadines and Grenada, may get as much as 10 inches of rain.
Beryl is predicted to move 21 mph toward the west-northwest and pass close to Jamaica on Wednesday, according to the hurricane center located in Miami.
Tropical storm warnings were in place for portions of the southern coastlines of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, while the government of Jamaica issued a hurricane alert for the whole nation.
The NHC said that when Beryl advances across the eastern Caribbean, "it is expected to remain an extremely dangerous major hurricane" and that "rainfall may cause flash flooding in vulnerable areas."
Waiter Welton Anderson at Kingston's Chillin' restaurant claimed he was at ease despite the hurricane's impending arrival.
Jamaicans bide their time to the very end. Panic strikes the night before or first thing in the morning. We're used to this, that's why," he said.
As the hurricane approached, people on neighboring eastern Caribbean islands boarded up their windows, stocked up on food, and fueled their automobiles with gasoline.
In Bridgetown, Barbados, earlier on Monday, cars were seen passing across a flooded boardwalk.
There have been reports of houses having their roofs torn off in Prospect, St. Vincent, and power outages in other areas of the island.
On Grenada, a Reuters correspondent said that the whole island was without electricity.
Mexico started getting ready for Beryl's arrival later this week, and the federal government released a statement asking both the public and authorities to proceed with "extreme caution."
In the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz, Mexico is now evaluating the damage caused by the intense rains that fell during the former tropical storm Chris.
The fact that basins are already inundated concerns us. Rivers will then rise even with little rain, according to Cutberto Ruiz, head of meteorology for Oaxaca's civil protection organization.
The signs of climate change
This year's Atlantic hurricane season began exceptionally fiercely and early with Beryl, and experts believe that the storm's abnormally early formation was accelerated by climate change.
As a result of the North Atlantic's record high temperatures brought about by global warming, more surface water is evaporating, adding fuel to the fire for storms with stronger winds and more intensity.
According to Reuters' poll of scientists, the strong hurricane portends an exceptionally busy hurricane season, which is made possible by the Atlantic Ocean's record-high temperatures.
According to Christopher Rozoff, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, in the United States, "climate change is running the dice for more intense hurricanes to form."
Meteorologist Andra Garner of New Jersey observed that Beryl went from a Category 1 to a Category 4 storm in less than ten hours.
According to meteorologist Garner, scientists have previously anticipated that as climate change occurs, the likelihood of storms like Beryl would increase. According to her study, the likelihood of storms becoming major hurricanes in less than a day has increased by more than twofold due to rising ocean temperatures over the last fifty years.
"The island's eastern side took the worst of the damage, and the waves are still hazardous. As a result of receiving enough notice, fishermen were able to take their boats out of the sea, according to All Tobago Fisherfolk Association President Curtis Douglas.
A local hotel and tourist agency reports that there has been very little damage to hotel buildings on the island thus far.
In addition to predicting above-normal storm activity in the Atlantic this year, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration pointed to unusually high water temperatures in May.
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