Kalain Ho­sein

Me­te­o­rol­o­gist/Re­porter

kalain.ho­sein@guardian.co.tt

The eye­wall of Hur­ri­cane Beryl scraped Ja­maica’s south­ern coast­line yes­ter­day, bring­ing “dev­as­tat­ing” winds of 240 kilo­me­tres per hour and a “life-threat­en­ing” storm surge be­tween six and nine feet, with rain­fall to­tals as high as 12 inch­es (300 mil­lime­tres), ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­tre (NHC).

Af­ter con­tin­u­ing its trail of de­struc­tion across the Caribbean, the pow­er­ful Cat­e­go­ry 4 hur­ri­cane moved just south of the Cay­man Is­lands last night, where a Hur­ri­cane Warn­ing was in ef­fect.

To­day, it is aim­ing for the Yu­catan Penin­su­la of Mex­i­co.

Beryl main­tained Cat­e­go­ry 4 strength in the face of strong wind shear and dry air—con­di­tions that usu­al­ly crip­ple trop­i­cal storms and hur­ri­canes. Fore­cast­ers at­tribute Beryl’s tena­cious abil­i­ty to main­tain its strength to the record warmth of the Caribbean Sea, which has oc­curred across the At­lantic for the last few months.

Based on cur­rent av­er­age sea-sur­face tem­per­a­tures, the At­lantic Basin, which in­cludes the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mex­i­co, close­ly re­sem­bles what the sea sur­face tem­per­a­tures would look like in Sep­tem­ber, dur­ing the peak of the hur­ri­cane sea­son when ocean tem­per­a­tures are at their warmest.

This record warmth comes at a time when, for sev­er­al con­sec­u­tive months, the globe has con­sis­tent­ly record­ed record-warm months and years. This record warmth is at­trib­uted to a warm­ing plan­et due to the un­abat­ed use and burn­ing of fos­sil fu­els, which pro­duce green­house gas­es that warm the globe.

Al­though Beryl has a warmer-than-av­er­age ocean ahead of it as it moves west, the Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­tre says mod­er­ate wind shear will lead to some weak­en­ing.

How­ev­er, Beryl should re­main a hur­ri­cane as it makes land­fall and weak­en in­to a trop­i­cal storm as it moves in­to the Gulf of Mex­i­co this week­end.

A Hur­ri­cane Warn­ing is in ef­fect for the Yu­catan Penin­su­la of Mex­i­co from Puer­to Cos­ta Maya to Can­cun, with a Hur­ri­cane Watch and Trop­i­cal Storm Warn­ing for the coast of the Yu­catan Penin­su­la of Mex­i­co south of Puer­to Cos­ta Maya to Chetu­mal and north of Can­cun to Cabo Catoche. A Trop­i­cal Storm Watch is al­so in ef­fect for Be­lize’s coastal ar­eas.

Af­ter Beryl moves in­to the Gulf of Mex­i­co, the NHC said Beryl may re­strength­en in­to a hur­ri­cane as it nears north­ern Mex­i­co and south­ern Texas this week­end.

In­vest 96L brings

gusty winds, floods

to ar­eas of Wind­wards

An ac­tive trop­i­cal wave, tracked by the NHC as In­vest 96L, moved across the Wind­wards, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go and Bar­ba­dos, yes­ter­day, bring­ing pe­ri­ods of heavy rain­fall and gusty winds to an area still clean­ing up af­ter Hur­ri­cane Beryl’s pas­sage on Mon­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the Bar­ba­dos Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice, a Flash Flood Warn­ing was is­sued yes­ter­day morn­ing across Bar­ba­dos as “pe­ri­ods of heavy to in­tense show­ers and thun­der­storms” oc­curred across the is­land.

Sim­i­lar­ly, fore­cast­ers warned the pub­lic of strong winds, flood­ing, and land­slides in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, where many re­main home­less fol­low­ing the Cat­e­go­ry 4 sys­tem.

Yes­ter­day, wind gusts be­tween 50 and 60 miles per hour, just be­low those ob­served dur­ing Hur­ri­cane Beryl, were ob­served in St Lu­cia and Bar­ba­dos.

In Do­mini­ca, strong winds led to a small sin­gle-en­gine Cess­na air­craft crash on take­off at the Cane­field Air­port, just on the out­skirts of the cap­i­tal, on Wednes­day. The pi­lot and his wife es­caped un­hurt. The au­thor­i­ties have since launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent.

In To­ba­go, con­tin­ued rain­fall led to 19 more re­ports of fall­en trees, sev­en roof-re­lat­ed in­ci­dents, one re­port of flood­ing, and a land­slide.

BOX

Beryl’s rain­fall re­plen­ish­es some reser­voirs

Heavy rain­fall as­so­ci­at­ed with Hur­ri­cane Beryl gen­er­al­ly stayed north as fore­cast, pre­dom­i­nant­ly af­fect­ing To­ba­go and the north­ern half of Trinidad.

How­ev­er, de­spite the heavy rain­fall, reser­voir lev­els have not marked­ly im­proved across the na­tion’s two largest reser­voirs, with sig­nif­i­cant re­plen­ish­ment at the Hills­bor­ough Reser­voir in To­ba­go.

Based on da­ta tak­en yes­ter­day, the Ca­roni Are­na Dam, the coun­try’s largest dam, re­mains the low­est at 23.43 per cent ca­pac­i­ty, com­pared to the 58.9 per cent long-term av­er­age for this time of year.

Navet Reser­voir has the sec­ond-low­est cur­rent ca­pac­i­ty, at 24.69 per cent, com­pared to the 50.47 per cent long-term av­er­age.

Com­pared to the last up­date on June 27, 2024, be­fore the rains be­gan, Hol­lis Reser­voir, lo­cat­ed in the North­ern Range, in­creased from 22.63 per cent to now 36.23 per cent, com­pared to a long-term av­er­age of 45.72 per cent, in­creas­ing by ap­prox­i­mate­ly 142.2 mil­lion im­pe­r­i­al gal­lons.

Mean­while, the Hills­bor­ough Reser­voir, the small­est of T&T’s four ma­jor reser­voirs, in­creased from 33 per cent last Wednes­day to 63.2 per cent yes­ter­day, com­pared to a long-term av­er­age of 69.9 per cent, in­creas­ing by ap­prox­i­mate­ly 67.8 mil­lion im­pe­r­i­al gal­lons.

The Ca­roni/Are­na Dam and Navet Reser­voir record­ed a 0.41 per cent and 8.33 per cent de­cline, ac­count­ing for a de­crease of 410 mil­lion im­pe­r­i­al gal­lons and 349.9 mil­lion im­pe­r­i­al gal­lons of wa­ter, re­spec­tive­ly.

On June 27, WASA ex­tend­ed the cur­rent Wa­ter Use Re­stric­tions for an­oth­er month through Ju­ly 31, 2024, due to “con­tin­ued low wa­ter lev­els at our reser­voirs, a lack of rain­fall, and re­duced wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty.”

In their cli­mate out­look re­leased yes­ter­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice said, “Most­ly av­er­age rain­fall to­tals are ex­pect­ed from Ju­ly to Sep­tem­ber, with mod­er­ate chances for usu­al num­ber of wet days and a mod­er­ate chance for flood­ing to oc­cur.”