| Above: Visible satellite image of ex-Hurricane Beryl at 12:06 pm EDT July 11, 2018. Ex-Beryl was generating disorganized heavy thunderstorms over the Bahamas. Image credit: NOAA/RAMMB. |
The remnants of Hurricane Beryl brought torrential rains to the Dominican Republic on Tuesday, with the capital Santo Domingo recording 9.61” (244 mm) in the 24 hours ending at 8 am EDT Tuesday. Hundreds of homes were flooded in the country, and power was knocked out to 130,000 customers, according to the Miami Herald. Ex-Beryl also left up to 47,000 customers without power in Puerto Rico at its peak on Monday, and the U.S. Virgin Islands also saw widespread power outages. Puerto Rico received rainfall amounts of 2 – 4” on eastern portions of the island on Monday, with one isolated area of 6+” occurring in the mountainous El Yunque region. By Monday evening, 9,000 customers still remained without power. Puerto Rico’s electricity infrastructure is still very fragile in the wake of last year’s catastrophic Hurricane Maria, as detailed by thinkprogress.org. There have been no reports of significant damage or flooding from Guadeloupe or Dominica in the Lesser Antilles, where Beryl passed through just after being downgraded from a tropical storm to a tropical wave.
Inundaciones en el Barrio Moscú, por las lluvias asociadas a la degradada tormenta #Beryl sobre República #Dominicana pic.twitter.com/pFt9qzQl1F
— Orlando Barría (@Barriaorlando) July 10, 2018
Satellite images on Wednesday morning showed that ex-Beryl’s passage over the mountainous terrain of Hispaniola had significantly disrupted the system. Beryl's remnants were bringing disorganized heavy thunderstorms to the Bahamas, with no signs of a surface circulation trying to form. The hurricane hunter mission scheduled for Wednesday afternoon was cancelled, but the Hurricane Hunters are on call to investigate ex-Beryl on Thursday, if necessary.
Forecast for Beryl’s remnants
Beryl’s remains are expected to move northward to north-northeastward at 5 – 10 mph Wednesday through Saturday. The SHIPS model predicts that wind shear will be a low 5 – 10 knots though Friday, and SSTs will be near 28.5°C (83°F). These conditions are favorable for development, and the 0Z Wednesday runs of our top models for predicting tropical cyclone genesis—the European, GFS, and UKMET models—all predicted some weak re-development of ex-Beryl by Friday, when the system is predicted to be a few hundred miles west of Bermuda. In their 8 am EDT Wednesday Tropical Weather Outlook, the National Hurricane Center gave ex-Beryl 2-day and 5-day odds of regeneration of 20% and 50%, respectively.
We’ll have an update on Hurricane Chris later today. Chris is speeding rapidly to the northeast towards Newfoundland, Canada, as a healthy-looking Category 2 storm, as seen on satellite imagery.
