A reconstituted Hurricane Beryl is expected to come ashore in south Texas early Monday, possibly slamming into land as a powerful category 2 hurricane, with the heavily-populated greater Houston area anticipating wind, heavy rain and possible tornadoes.
The storm was roaring across the Gulf of Mexico, gaining fresh strength and was forecast to continue strengthening as it heads towards the US, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Temperatures near the Texas coast are forecast at above 90F (32C) in the coming days, including heat indices as high as 108F on Sunday. Parts of eastern Texas were on flood watch ahead of the storm, which had maximum wind speeds of 60mph as of Sunday morning.
“Preparations should be rushed to completion in Texas,” the NHC posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday afternoon.
More than 120 counties were under disaster declaration on Sunday, following statements from the Texas lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick. On Saturday he urged Texans in the region to make final preparations.
“Beryl is a determined storm, and incoming winds and potential flooding will pose a serious threat to Texans who are in Beryl’s path,” Patrick said.
He added: “Texans need to take heed, watch their local officials, and prepare today and tomorrow before the storm makes landfall early Monday morning.”
The US NHC has been issuing frequent updates as the storm approaches, after Hurricane Beryl hit the Caribbean causing devastation as the earliest category 5 hurricane to form in the Atlantic on record. The climate crisis continues to fuel hurricanes and an above average season is projected to be in store this summer.
“Anybody living within this storm surge watch area, if you live in the storm surge evacuation zone, please start making preparations in case you are asked to evacuate by local officials,” National Hurricane Center director Michael Brennan told the Houston Chronicle. “Get ready to potentially leave your home, especially in those barrier islands.
On Sunday, the port of Corpus Christi was closed because of gale force winds expected and other ports along the Texas coast, principally serving the oil industry, also started to close or restrict vessel traffic.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has its launch site Starbase on South Padre island, said via a Nasa post on Instagram that cranes had lowered and Ship 31 had been rolled back to the production site in preparation for the storm’s arrival.
Over the past week, Beryl has smashed into the south-east Caribbean as a category 4 hurricane, killing 10, wrecking buildings and displacing hundreds of people before coming ashore again in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula as a category 2 hurricane, then moving north-west across excessively warm sea waters as a tropical storm. On Sunday it was expected to reconstitute itself again as a hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico before coming ashore on the middle Texas coast between the US-Mexico border and Houston.
Once Texas has been drenched, the storm is expected to disperse as a post-tropical cyclone, bringing rain and flooding to the US midwest and upper midwest.
The US national hurricane center said early Sunday that although Beryl had not intensified in the past 24 hours, vertical wind shear was in the process of decreasing and would provide the storm the opportunity to start intensifying again as it mixes with dry air.
“The fastest rate of intensification is likely to occur right before landfall, and the latest intensity forecast still shows Beryl becoming a hurricane again in 24 hours, with some additional intensification possible right up until landfall,” the center said.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 109 tropical systems have made landfall in Texas since 1850. The most recent was Hurricane Nicholas, a category 1 hurricane, that killed two and did $1bn in damage.
Hurricane Harvey devastated the Houston area in 2017.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed reporting
