The Farmer's Forecast: Watching Beryl

By Nick Mikulas

Louisiana Farm Bureau News/Cenla Weather

All eyes are on Hurricane Beryl. Here’s how I see things going for Louisiana.

Beryl will likely maintain major hurricane status as it approaches Jamaica. There will be some weakening over the next few days, but it looks like a Jamaica landfall, or very close call will happen, causing some big problems there today. After that the forecast track takes Hurricane Beryl just south of Cancun and Cozumel sometime Thursday night. If that happens, Beryl would spend around 12 hours over land, and would likely weaken to a strong tropical storm, or minimal hurricane. If it moves a bit further north, we get less land interaction, and more potential for it to maintain strength. Beryl should restrengthen somewhat after it emerges into the Gulf of Mexico, though the intensity will depend a lot on how much the circulation is disrupted over land.

As of yesterday evening, Beryl continued to ride the northern side of guidance, though only by about 20-30 miles over a 24 hour period. The consistency of this, along with global models having a tough time on strength shows me that the northern solutions are a reasonable possibility. The way I see it, rain chances will really ramp up by the weekend, but the chance for a Louisiana landfall remains low. The one thing that gives me a little pause is the fact that the European ensembles really highlight the fact that a stronger storm would move a decent bit further north. If that model suite is correct, we’d have something to be a bit concerned about since it Beryl has run on the stronger side of models since it started out. If I had to put numbers on it, I’d say the chance of a Louisiana landfall is 5-10%. The chance for a Texas landfall is close to 50%, with the remaining 35-40% chance that landfall will be in Mexico. I’m referring to final landfall, as there is a very high chance for a Mexico landfall in the Yucatan peninsula. I’m leaning on the northern side of guidance, and a bit north of NHC at this point due to a stronger storm being more likely to go further north.

I know it’s tough or impossible to prepare for this. There are plenty of scenarios where we only see beneficial rain from Beryl, and no major local issues. I’ll be watching until Beryl is no longer classified as a tropical system, and will keep you as updated as possible.