After sweeping across the Windward Islands yesterday, Beryl continues to quickly race across the Caribbean. Unfortunately, the forecasts have shifted north a bit, and as warned yesterday Jamaica is now at serious risk from this powerful storm. Here is the impact swath forecast using my TAOS/TC Model, based on the 5am National Hurricane Center forecast:
On this track, the damage to Jamaica will be extensive, with the region of category five winds just offshore (the yellowish swath in the map). Only a slight northward shift would take the swath of the northern eyewall right down the island:
Beryl is unusually strong for this time of year, and is in any event an extremely dangerous storm. If you are in Jamaica or the Cayman Islands, please take this storm seriously and follow the directions of emergency management! The damage to Jamaica is likely to be extensive in either case. On the NHC track, the forecast is for over $1 Billion in damage, or 6% of GDP. A mere 20km shift could increase that to $8 Billion USD – over 50% GDP! By comparison, the most expensive hurricane to hit the US barely hit 1% of GDP (over $200 Billion in adjusted dollars). This is important to keep in mind – a Billion dollar event means very different things for a small country like Jamaica vs. the US, where natural disasters don’t impact the entire country.
For a good summary of the official forecast, see NHC’s Key Messages regarding Hurricane Beryl (en Español: Mensajes Claves) . In a lot of ways the forecast is pretty straightforward, but the “little” wobbles can make a huge difference in damage especially for individual locations. Here are the major primary track forecasts:
It looks like Beryl will be starting to encounter shear and starting to lose strength. Here is a plot of the various intensity forecasts for the next five days – the welcome downward trend is pretty consistent, but may not be in time to prevent catastrophic damage to Jamaica:
Beryl caused extensive damage in Grenada and The Grenadines, as well as side-swiping Barbados and St. Vincent causing significant damage. You will likely see fundraising in the upcoming days to help – please contribute if you can, but beware scams. Once we get a better picture of the damage I’ll post some vetted links.
Elsewhere, the invest behind Beryl isn’t getting organized as of yet, and conditions aren’t great now, less that 30% chance of it becoming a depression.
If you like this kind of commentary you get get it directly in your email by subscribing below. Contributions appreciated but not required.
The added comments are a nice service.