Hurricane Beryl To Intensify Into "Extremely Dangerous Cat. 4" Storm 

Hurricane Beryl formed in the Atlantic Basin this weekend and is forecasted to strengthen into a category-four hurricane as it barrels through the southeast Caribbean in the coming days. 

"Hurricane Beryl is expected to be an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane when it reaches the Windward Islands early Monday," the National Hurricane Center wrote in a message on Sunday. 

On Sunday morning, Beryl was located about 465 miles from Barbados, packing winds in excess of 100 mph and moving west at 21 mph. The storm is rated as a Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson scale and could rapidly intensify to Category 4  status. 

Hurricane warnings have been posted for Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. 

"Only five major (Category 3+) hurricanes have been recorded in the Atlantic before the first week of July. Beryl would be the sixth and earliest this far east in the tropical Atlantic," hurricane expert Michael Lowry wrote on X. 

Beryl is expected to pass south of Barbados early Monday and then head into the Caribbean Sea as a major hurricane on a path toward Jamaica. The storm will weaken by the end of the week but remain a hurricane as it churns toward the Yucatán Peninsula. 

The ECMWF Ensemble and GEFS Ensemble shed more color on Beryl's potential future track. These models indicate that the storm's potential track could shift north after landfall around the Yucatán Peninsula and, after that, move towards the US Gulf Coast, where major refineries are located.

ECMWF Ensemble

GEFS Ensemble

And there's activity behind Beryl. 

We have pointed out that this hurricane season, the Biden administration must contend with an elevated number of storms. It only takes one major storm to disrupt Gulf Coast refineries, which would catapult average gasoline prices at the pump to the politically sensitive $4 a gallon before the elections this fall.