Fishing boats damaged by Hurricane Beryl wade in the water at the Bridgetown Fisheries in Barbados on July 2, 2024.—and experts say that climate change is making it much more likely for extreme weather events like this to occur.said Tuesday that Beryl is “expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge to Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands Wednesday night and Thursday.
Hurricanes rely on a warm ocean to form. Because of that, hurricane season usually runs from June through November, when oceans are warm enough for a hurricane to develop, says Marcus C. Sarofim, a physical scientist in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Science & Impacts Branch. But Beryl is “unusual” and “unprecedented,” Hall adds, because it’s happening so early in the hurricane season, before the warmest ocean temperatures are usually seen.
Warmer temperatures also allow the Earth’s atmosphere to hold more water in it, which can lead to heavy rainfall, says Steve Vavrus, director of the Wisconsin State Climatology Office. Intense rainfall often leads to flooding, which can overwhelm existing stormwater systems, he adds. On the other hand, because the atmosphere can hold more moisture, that can demand more evaporation, which can lead to drier conditions on land, according to Vavrus. Along withreleased Tuesday, the extent of the area that wildfires have burned in the U.S. has risen since the 1980s. The report found that the 10 years with the largest acreage burned by wildfires all occurred since 2004—coinciding with some of the warmest years recorded.