ORLANDO, Fla. – Hurricane Beryl continues to break records for the Atlantic Basin.
Hurricane Hunters found that Beryl’s maximum sustained winds have increased to 160 mph, making the storm a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir Simpson scale.
Beryl becomes the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record, beating Hurricane Emily from July 16, 2005. That year went on to be the second-most intense hurricane season on record.
Emily and now Beryl are the only two Category 5 hurricanes in the month of July.
Beryl was already the strongest June hurricane, the easternmost hurricane to develop in the month of June and the earliest Category 4 storm on record. Records go back to the 1800s.
Beryl became the easternmost hurricane to ever develop during the month of June. Beryl formed further east than Elsa in 2021 and an unnamed hurricane that formed east of Trinidad and Tobago in 1933. Beryl went on to become the strongest June hurricane on record for the Atlantic basin, beating Hurricane Audrey in 1957. Audrey had winds of 125 mph.
For more perspective, the last two times the Windward Islands were impacted by a major hurricane was Maria in 2017 and Ivan in 2004. Both of those storms were in September, the peak of hurricane season.
Beryl is expected to weaken as it encounters wind shear in the Central Caribbean.