Hurricane Beryl Makes Landfall in Texas

UPDATE Jul 8, 2024 6:40 AM CDT

Beryl made landfall on the Texas coast near Matagorda early Monday with a dangerous storm surge and strong winds, the National Weather Service reported. The storm's center hit land as a Category 1 hurricane around 4am Central Standard Time about 85 miles southwest of Houston with top sustained winds of 80mph while moving north at 12mph. A hurricane warning remains in effect for the Texas coast from Mesquite Bay north to Port Bolivar, the center said. Beryl is expected to weaken to a tropical storm Monday and a tropical depression Tuesday, reports the AP, and a turn to the northeast and increase in speed Monday night and Tuesday is forecast. The storm's center is expected to move over eastern Texas on Monday and then through the lower Mississippi Valley into the Ohio Valley on Tuesday and Wednesday, the weather service said.

Jul 8, 2024 1:30 AM CDT

Beryl strengthened and again became a hurricane late Sunday as it heads toward southern Texas, where its outer bands lashed the coast with rain and intensifying winds as residents prepared for the powerful storm that has already cut a deadly path through parts of Mexico and the Caribbean. People on the Texas coast boarded up windows and left beach towns under evacuation orders, the AP reports. The hurricane had top sustained winds of 75mph, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was moving northwest at 10mph. The storm was projected to come ashore early Monday in the middle of the Texas coast around Matagorda Bay, an area about 100 miles south of Houston, but officials cautioned the path could still change.

As the storm neared the coast, Texas officials warned Sunday it could cause power outages and flooding but also expressed worry that not enough residents and beach vacationers in Beryl's path had heeded warnings to leave. Tropical storm winds extended 115 miles from the center, and the hurricane center warned residents to be prepared for possible flash flooding in parts of middle, upper, and eastern Texas as well as Arkansas as the storm gradually turns to the north and then northeast later Monday. The earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic, Beryl has gained 35mph in wind speed in 24 hours or less—the official weather service definition of rapid intensification—three times during its one week of life. (More of the latest on the storm here.)