Hurricane Hunters fly into the eye of Category 5 Hurricane “Beryl”

Hurricane “Beryl” made landfall over Carriacou Island, Grenada on July 1, 2024, as a Category 4 hurricane, flattening homes and leaving at least 3 people dead in Grenada. Two more people were killed and 5 people are missing in Venezuela.

Shortly after making landfall, Beryl intensified into a Category 5 storm and NOAA’s Hurricane Hunters flew into its eye — as a part of their normal operations to support hurricane research from NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory.

A 21-second-long video is available on Facebook.

Beryl is still a dangerous Category 4 hurricane and is expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge to Jamaica on July 3 and the Cayman Islands tonight and into Thursday, July 4.

At 06:00 UTC on July 3, Beryl’s center was located 400 km (250 miles) ESE of Kingston, Jamaica and was moving WNW at 35 km/h (22 mph). Its minimum central pressure was 946 hPa.

According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the ‘center of Beryl will move rapidly across the central Caribbean Sea and is forecast to pass near or over Jamaica later today. The center is expected to pass near or over the Cayman Islands tonight or early Thursday and approach the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico Thursday night.’

Featured image credit: NOAA Hurricane Hunters