Hurricane Beryl made landfall just before 4 a.m. on Monday near Matagorda, Texas, as a Category 1 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Portions of the middle and upper Texas Gulf Coast and Eastern Texas should expect 5 to 10 inches of heavy rainfall Monday and into the night, according to NHC senior hurricane specialist Jack Beven in a 4 a.m. public advisory. Southeastern Texas is an expected target for life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flash and urban flooding.
Beryl is moving north at around 12 mph as of 7 a.m. Monday, hurricane forecasters say. THe storm is expected to turn and travel toward the northeast with an increase in speed Monday and Tuesday. Hurricane forecasters say that the center of Beryl will move over eastern Texas Monday before going through the Lower Mississippi Valley and into the Ohio Vallery on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The hurricane is expected to gradually weaken as it moves inland. Hurricane forecasters predict that the hurricane will turn into a tropical storm later during the day Monday, then become a tropical depression on Tuesday.
Just after 11 p.m. Sunday night, Beryl began strengthening in earnest, and the intensification continued until it hit the Texas coast, Beven said. During landfall, Beryl's top winds reached 80 mph, accompanied by as much as 7 feet of surge in Matagorda Bay. Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 45 miles from Beryl’s center, and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 115 miles. A wind gust of 85 mph was reported at a monitoring station in Surfside Beach, Texas.
A few tornadoes may occur Monday night along the upper Texas coast, and several are possible during the day in Louisiana and Arkansas.
Beryl is the first named hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. In late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that there would be between 17 to 25 named storms this year. Warm ocean temperatures and the absence of El Nino are the main causes of an above-average hurricane season.
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