At a Glance
- Hurricane Beryl set early season intensity records.
- It ransacked several Windward Islands at Category 4 intensity.
- It then brushed Jamaica and the Cayman Islands before slamming Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
- It regained some intensity before hitting the Texas coast as a hurricane with flooding, high winds and tornadoes.
- Its remnant spawned dozens of tornadoes and flooding rain as far north as upstate New York.
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Hurricane Beryl made early-season history, blasted the southern Windward Islands, then brushed Jamaica and the Cayman Islands before its final two landfalls in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and Texas, then spawning a swarm of tornadoes and flooding rain from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast.
It began on Friday, June 28 when the National Hurricane Center began advisories on Tropical Depression Two just over 1,200 miles east of Barbados. Six hours later it became Tropical Storm Beryl.
The following afternoon it was already Hurricane Beryl, the farthest east of any Atlantic Basin hurricane in June. By June 30, it strengthened to become the first Category 4 Atlantic Basin on record for June. That's a depression-to-Cat. 4 rapid intensification spurt in just 48 hours.
(MORE: The Early-Season Records Beryl Shattered)
After undergoing an eyewall replacement and passing between Barbados and Tobago, Beryl made landfall just after 11 a.m. EDT Monday, July 1 over the Grenadan island of Carriacou with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph. Among only two other Category 4 hurricanes in history near Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Beryl was the strongest by wind speed.
Devastation was widespread on Carriacou, Petite Martinique and Union Islands, with vegetation largely stripped bare and numerous homes damaged or destroyed.
Downed trees, flooded streets, power outages and storm surge flooding was reported in the Grenadines, Grenada, Barbados and Tobago.
While its eyewall passed south of Barbados, a 69 mph gust was clocked at Grantley Adams International Airport, the island's major airport. Grenada clocked a wind gust up to 121 mph as the center of Beryl tracked just north of the island. A gust to 64 mph was reported on St. Lucia, as well.
Just 12 hours after its southern Windward Island landfall, Beryl became the record earliest Category 5 Atlantic Basin hurricane on the evening of July 1. The following day, its winds topped out at 165 mph, the strongest July hurricane by wind speed on record in the Atlantic Basin.
Beryl brushed the southern coast of Jamaica on July 3, bringing heavy rainfall and damaging winds. Winds gusted as high as 81 mph at Norman Manley International Airport on a peninsula south of the country's capital city, Kingston, damaging a section of roof. This was the strongest hurricane to strike Jamaica in almost 17 years, since Hurricane Dean in 2007.
As Beryl made its closest approach, winds gusted to 54 mph on Grand Cayman Island on July 4.
Beryl then made landfall near Tulum, Mexico, early on July 5 with estimated winds of 110 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was the peninsula's strongest hurricane since Delta in Oct. 2020.
Wind gusts up to 81 mph were clocked just south of Playa del Carmen in the core of Beryl. A gust to 48 mph was clocked on Isla Mujeres, just offshore of Cancún.
Texas Landfall
Beryl's center crossed the coast at 4 a.m. CDT July 8 near Matagorda, Texas. Its maximum sustained winds at landfall were 80 mph, making Beryl a Category 1 hurricane.
Winds gusted over 90 mph on the Texas coast. The strongest gusts were 97 mph near Freeport and 91 mph in San Bernard.
Houston saw wind gusts up to 84 mph at Hobby airport and 83 mph at Intercontinental airport, contributing to widespread power outages that lasted for days after the storm.
Rainfall caused significant flash flooding in southeast Texas. The Houston metro area saw as much as 14.88 inches near Hilshire Village. Several other locations in Harris County picked up 10 or more inches of rain.
Moderate to major coastal flooding from storm surge was reported on parts of the middle and upper Texas coasts. Surfside Beach was among the locations that saw a significant inundation of seawater.
Inland Impacts
Beryl went on to spawn at least 65 tornadoes from the Texas coast to upstate New York from July 8-10. Forty three of those tornadoes touched down in area served by the NWS-Shreveport, Louisiana, the most in a single day in their forecast area since 1995. That was the most tornadoes from any U.S. tropical storm or hurricane since 2005.
Over 200 tornado warnings were issued by the National Weather Service in that three-day period. That included the most tornado warnings issued for any July day and the most issued in any day in New York state.
Among actual confirmed tornadoes, rather than simply warnings, eight of those were EF2 or stronger. That included an EF3 in Mt. Vernon, Indiana, the strongest July tornado to occur in the NWS-Paducah, Kentucky, forecast area since 1950.
Beryl and its remnant triggered heavy rain and inland flash flooding from Texas to Maine. The most serious flash flooding was triggered in upstate New York, northern Vermont, northern New Hampshire and Maine on July 10 and 11, where up to six inches of rain fell in about 24 hours, washing out roads and flooding some towns exactly one year after the devastating Montpelier-Barre, Vermont flood.
Lowville, New York, had its highest 24-hour rainfall in its 132-plus year history of 6.02 inches, which contributed to a landslide on one property caught on video as it happened.
St. Johnsbury, Vermont, narrowly missed their all-time wettest day dating to 1894, when 4.93 inches of rain fell on July 11.
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