Why Hurricane Beryl's 'insane' intensification has experts worried

Hurricane Beryl made landfall Monday on Grenada's Carriacou Island as a Category 4 storm packing potentially catastrophic 150 mile per hour sustained winds.

The hurricane made history in several ways, and none of them are good news, experts say.

"The only other major hurricane to pass within 100 miles of where #Beryl is on Monday morning was Ivan in September 2004, and that was at Category 3 intensity," Brian McNoldy, senior researcher on hurricanes, climatology and sea level rise at the University of Miami, wrote Monday in a post on X. "These islands have no experience with a Category 4 hurricane in recorded history."

In fact, Beryl became the first Category 4 storm to form in the month of June in the Atlantic basin and it strengthened in the shortest amount of time on record.

"This is the fastest rate of strengthening ever observed in the satellite era (since 1966) for June," Sam Lillo, meteorologist at WPLG in Miami said, adding that Beryl “took just 42 hours to go from a tropical depression to a Category 3 storm.”

Avery Tomasco, meteorologist at CBS in Austin, Texas, joined a chorus of professionals who marveled over how quickly the storm had strengthened.

"Insane to see that kind of rapid intensification in JUNE," he wrote in a post on X. Hurricane season begins on June 1 and lasts until Nov. 30,, but the strongest storms usually don't form until later in the season.

Hurricane intensification and climate change

While there is no concrete evidence to show that climate change is causing an increase in the number of hurricanes each year, numerous studies have linked rising global temperatures to a shortening of the time it takes hurricanes to ramp up into monster storms like Beryl. A 2024 study published in Nature found that average maximum intensification rates for tropical cyclones increased by 28.7% from the period between 1971-1990 to 2001-2020.

Record ocean temperatures

Through April, temperatures in the world’s oceans obliterated heat records for 13 straight months.

"It's not just that it was a consecutive string of 421 days," McNoldy told Scientific American. "But for so much of that time, it was breaking the records by a lot — not even close."

That record hot streak, which threatens coral reefs and increases humidity, comes on top of decades in which ocean temperatures have risen due to the buildup of greenhouse gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere.

That warming, studies have shown, is helping to intensify hurricanes.

2024 hurricane forecast

In its seasonal forecast, NOAA has predicted a total of between 17 and 25 named storms in 2024, with between four and seven expected to become major hurricanes Category 3 or higher.

Colorado State University, which issues its own annual tropical cyclone prediction, estimates that the world will see 23 named storms this season, 11 of which will become major hurricanes.

With Beryl’s record-breaking performance at the star of July, many experts are bracing for what’s yet to come.

"This is a massive warning sign for the rest of the season," Steve Bowen, chief science officer at the reinsurance broker Gallagher Re, wrote in a post on X.