Forecasters issued a hurricane watch for Barbados early Saturday as Tropical Storm Beryl gained strength roughly 975 miles southeast of the island nation, growing closer to becoming the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic storm season.
The storm headed west toward the Caribbean and was expected to grow into a hurricane as early as Saturday night as it approached the Windward Islands, southeast of Puerto Rico and north of Venezuela. A hurricane watch indicates that hurricane conditions are possible within 48 hours and that residents should prepare to act.
The system became a tropical storm late Friday when its sustained winds reached 39 miles per hour. At 74 m.p.h., a storm becomes a hurricane. As of 4:40 a.m. Eastern on Saturday, the National Hurricane Center estimated the storm had sustained winds of 50 m.p.h., gusting even higher.
A named storm this far east in the Atlantic is unusual for June, John Cangialosi, a forecaster with the National Hurricane Center, wrote in an advisory Friday.
“There have only been a few storms in history that have formed over the central or eastern tropical Atlantic this early in the year,” he wrote.
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