Beryl has made its final landfall — and as a hurricane.
The National Hurricane Center said Beryl, the second Atlantic hurricane of 2024, made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane around 4 a.m. CDT Monday near Matagorda, Texas.
Beryl continued to move inland in Texas on Monday morning, and the hurricane center said the storm was spreading “life-threatening storm surge and heavy rainfall” along the coast and strong winds inland.
As of 6 a.m. CDT Monday, the center of Hurricane Beryl was located about 30 miles north-northeast of Matagorda, or 55 miles south-southwest of Houston, and was moving north at 12 mph.
Beryl was still a Category 1 hurricane with 80 mph winds.
The hurricane center said hurricane conditions continued to spread across the warning area on Monday morning and will continue for the next several hours. Tropical storm conditions are occurring elsewhere in the warning area.
The hurricane center said on the forecast track the center of the storm will move over eastern Texas today and then pick up speed and continue northward and cross Arkansas and eventually move into the Ohio Valley by Wednesday.
Beryl could bring 5 to 10 inches of rain with local amounts up to 15 inches to parts of Texas through tonight. Forecasters added that “considerable flash and urban flooding” will be possible.
From hurricane center forecaster Eric Blake:
Though Beryl was still a hurricane it was expected to rapidly weaken as it continues inland. It will weaken to a tropical storm later today and a depression by Tuesday.
This was Beryl’s third landfall. The first one came a week ago on July 1 on the Windward Island of Carriacou. Beryl was a Category 4 hurricane then with 150 mph winds.
Beryl crossed the Caribbean and raked the coast of Jamaica but never made landfall there, instead coming ashore for the second time on Mexico’s eastern Yucatan Peninsula on July 5. At that point it was a Category 2 hurricane with 110 mph winds.
In between Beryl intensified and was briefly a Category 5 hurricane over the eastern Caribbean with winds that peaked at 165 mph. Beryl is the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic, beating 2005′s Hurricane Emily by about two weeks to the record.