Hurricane Beryl, now a potentially catastrophic Category 5 storm, has set its sights on Jamaica after inflicting ruin across entire islands in the Caribbean on Monday.
The storm is expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge to Jamaica on Wednesday and impact the Cayman Islands on Thursday, where a hurricane watch has been issued.
The storm continues to smash records as it kicks off an exceptionally early hurricane season as the earliest Category 5 hurricane – and only the second Atlantic storm of such strength to be recorded in July. Beryl alarming strengthening has been fed by abnormally warm ocean waters driven by planet-warming fossil fuel pollution.
It took only minutes for Beryl to tear through Grenada on Monday, blasting through buildings and knocking out power and phone service to almost all of the island’s residents, the governor’s office said.
“In half an hour, Carriacou was flattened,” Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said Monday.
the warmer than normal oceanic temperatures are intensifying the storm as it continues along it’s path of destruction.
