Beryl becomes a hurricane heading towards the Caribbean.

Tropical storm Beryl has reached hurricane status with a forecast to progressively intensify, still a few days away from approaching Cuba.

"Beryl is now a hurricane and is forecasted to rapidly intensify. It is expected to bring potentially strong winds and will likely reach the Leeward Islands as a major hurricane," reported the National Hurricane Center from their account on X.

The forecast is for Beryl to reach category 3 or higher as it approaches the Caribbean.

In Barbados, Saint Lucia, Grenada, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines hurricane alerts have been activated, while a tropical storm alert has been issued for Martinique and Trinidad and Tobago.

The Senior Vice President of Guy Carpenter, a group focused on climate change and extreme weather events, Kieran Bhatia, wrote in X that "since 1980, only two storms have reached a 24-hour period with at least 30 knots of intensification in January-June in the North Atlantic: Hurricane Alberto in 1982 + Hurricane Alison in 1995 (both in the Gulf of Mexico). Beryl is added to the list (first in the Caribbean Sea)."

While meteorologist Eric Fisher mentioned: "We received our first hurricane in the Atlantic six weeks earlier than average and the easternmost one ever recorded at such an early stage of the season."

The Forecast Center of the Cuban Meteorology Institute (INSMET) issued a new Tropical Cyclone Warning.