The center of Hurricane Beryl, already a Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, is located in the Caribbean Sea and continues its trajectory towards the west-northeast towards the Yucatan Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, said the National Meteorological Service (SMN).
The weather agency said in its latest statement that at 6:00 p.m. local time (00:00 GMT on Wednesday) the hurricane was located more than 360 miles east-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and 1,053 miles east-southeast of Cancún, Quintana Roo.
It also has sustained winds of 149 mph, with gusts of 182 mph and is moving west-northwest at 21 mph.
Given these conditions, the SMN, in coordination with the United States National Hurricane Center, established a surveillance area for the effects of the hurricane from Cabo Catoche to Chetumal, Quintana Roo.
Mexico’s meteorological service noted that “for the moment, this system is not affecting Mexican coasts,” however, according to its trajectory “it is expected that starting Thursday, the cloud bands of Beryl will cause intense to torrential rains, strong gusts of wind and high waves in the Yucatan Peninsula.”
According to the forecast, the SMN recommended following its warnings and the recommendations of state authorities and Civil Protection.
In this regard, the agency warned of a double impact of Beryl in Mexico, where between Thursday and Friday it would make landfall in Quintana Roo, the most touristic state in the country, and between Sunday and Monday of next week, it would reach the state of Veracruz, in the Gulf of Mexico.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has criticized the “sensationalism” surrounding Hurricane Beryl, which reached Category 5 strength on Monday, one of the most intense hurricanes at this early stage of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season.
“They will never be left helpless, but they should not be alarmed, because there will also be a lot of sensationalism, too much information about the hurricane, exaggerated,” the president asked the inhabitants of the Mexican Caribbean in his morning press conference.
Beryl, which left six dead on the Caribbean islands, is the first hurricane of the season and sets an “alarming precedent” because a maximum intensity cyclone had not formed in the Atlantic at this time of year before, said the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
But the Mexican president said that “now there is no certainty that it will arrive in force and that it will enter through Chetumal,” the capital of Quintana Roo, “or through any town, that is not yet the case.”
During the current Atlantic hurricane season, Mexico has received two tropical storms.
The first was Alberto, on June 20, which left six people dead in Nuevo León, a state bordering the United States, as well as destruction and flooding in the capital of Monterrey, the second most populous city in the Latin American country.
While the second was Chris, which made landfall in the early minutes of Monday, July 1, in Veracruz.
In May, Spanish authorities predicted nearly 41 named cyclones in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, of which at least five will hit Mexico.
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