Hurricane Beryl strengthens to category 4: "Extremely dangerous"

Hurricane Beryl, which is approaching with all its strength and promises to cause significant damage to the Caribbean islands, including Cuba, reached category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

A reconnaissance plane from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) of the United States found that Beryl has strengthened, presenting an "extreme danger" condition due to its maximum winds of 130 mph.

Potentially strong winds and storm surges are expected in the Windward Islands starting early Monday morning,” the U.S. agency stated in a statement posted on the social network X.

This Saturday Beryl reached hurricane status with the forecast of progressively intensifying.

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 Cuban Meteorology Institute (INSMET) is monitoring the evolution and trajectory of this cyclonic event, even though the trajectory cone outlined by the NHC is moving it away from Cuba. It would weaken south of the island and make landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula.

However, after learning that Beryl had become a hurricane, the INSMET issued a Tropical Cyclone Advisory, indicating that the movement of this cyclonic system in the next 12 to 24 hours "should continue near the west-northwest, intensifying further before reaching the Lesser Antilles arc."

They also announced that "the next update (from INSMET) on this system will be issued at six in the evening on Sunday".

The meteorologist Eric Fisher has said about Beryl that it is a premature hurricane for the dates of the season. "We received our first hurricane in the Atlantic six weeks earlier than average and the furthest east recorded at such an early stage of the season," he pointed out from X.

Beryl is the first hurricane of a season that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States forecasts to be more active than usual in the Atlantic, with the possibility of up to 13 hurricanes, of which up to seven could be of great intensity.