'They're Going To Experience Impacts': Meteorologist Explains Where People Should Be Ready For Beryl

5 months ago

Meteorologist Dr. Marshall Shepherd joined Brittany Lewis on "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss Hurricane Beryl.

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Transcript

00:00Aside from people paying attention both in Mexico and the U.S., particularly Texas, where

00:05else should people be paying attention now?

00:08Those who live on these, in these islands, and as we know, as you mentioned, it is July

00:121st, it is vacation season, so who needs to keep their eye out?

00:16Yeah, it's vacation season, it's cruise season.

00:18I had a friend of mine in one of the islands reach out to me because he heard about the

00:23hurricane.

00:24Now luckily they were on an island a bit further north, but I bet they're still getting some

00:28stormy conditions even today.

00:29I think they were there over the weekend.

00:31So if you're anywhere in sort of an island nation in the Windward Island, you're probably

00:36dealing with a storm right now.

00:38As the storm moves further into the western Caribbean, Jamaica I'm particularly concerned

00:43about because the storm looks to be heading right to Jamaica or just to its south.

00:48And so either way, they're going to experience impacts, even parts of the southern, parts

00:53of perhaps even the Dominican Republic or Haiti and parts of Cuba.

00:57Those places will feel the impacts, but I'm really concerned about Jamaica, Grand Cayman,

01:02the Cayman Islands.

01:03Those places will perhaps feel the impacts as well.

01:06And then people that may be vacationing in Cozumel or Cancun, they'll likely have some

01:12impacts from this storm as well.

01:14And then again, once it gets back in the Gulf of Mexico, we'll have to know.

01:19I think within the next couple of days, Brittany, we'll have a better idea of what's at stake

01:24for the U.S. or northern Mexico.

01:27Typically beyond about five days, the model, there's a little bit more uncertainty in the

01:31track forecast.

01:32But within five days into 4, 3, 2, and 1, we're pretty certain about where it's going.

01:37As you mentioned earlier, it is July 1st.

01:40So it is, we're still in the beginning of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.

01:44And it is unprecedented to see a storm of this caliber.

01:47So does this indicate anything for what you're expecting the rest of the season?

01:52You know, I can't say that one particular storm tells me anything about storms of the

01:56future.

01:57But again, we have projected this to be a very active hurricane season.

02:01My colleagues at Colorado State University, Noah and others that do hurricane projections

02:06for the season have all been consistent that this is going to be an active hurricane season.

02:11And it's for the reasons I mentioned, extremely warm sea surface temperatures, favorable upper

02:17atmospheric wind shear patterns likely due to La Nina.

02:21And there's something else which is a little bit geeky as well, but I'll share it because

02:24I'm a weather geek.

02:25And by the way, I host that vodcast with the Weather Channel.

02:28But one of the things that we also look for is the activity of the African monsoon, and

02:34the monsoon's very active.

02:36We expect it to be active and that will start to spit out these sort of systems that ultimately

02:41are born into tropical systems.

02:43And so we keep an eye on that as well.

02:44So you know, and I have to bring this to bear, the extreme water temperatures are consistent

02:52with what we have seen as our climate continues to warm.

02:56I mean, that's just one of the places where we always see the signature of warming.

03:00I want to say one other thing, Brittany, before I lose my thought on it.

03:05Hurricane Beryl did something that we're seeing more frequently, well, and it's alarming.

03:10When it first intensified to a major hurricane, it gained 65 knots of wind speed in 36 hours.

03:20Now, our definition for rapid intensification of hurricanes is 30 knots of wind speed in

03:27a 24-hour period.

03:28So in other words, it gets stronger by about 35 miles per hour over a one-day period.

03:35I just said Beryl did 65 knots, or on the order of 60, 70, whatever, miles per hour

03:40in 36 hours.

03:41So this thing got strong really fast.

03:44That's the message here.

03:45And why is that?

03:46It's got so much warm water, and it's got a really favorable upper atmospheric conditions,

03:53low wind shear, so that thing can just really explode.

03:56And that's what we're seeing.

03:57Brittany, we're seeing more of these rapidly intensifying hurricanes.

04:00Let me tell you why that's dangerous.

04:02It's dangerous because as a storm is approaching one of the islands, or if it gets close to

04:07making landfall, people may go to sleep thinking they're dealing with a Category 1 or 2 storm,

04:12and they wake up, boom, you got a Category 4 storm.

04:15The rapid intensification is an increasingly concerning problem that we see.

'They're Going To Experience Impacts': Meteorologist Explains Where People Should Be Ready For Beryl

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