Beryl Now Fully Tropical, Will Cross Coast This Evening

Beryl has gotten better organized, and the National Hurricane Center thinks it has become completely tropical this afternoon, with a warm core.  The storm is a little stronger, with top winds of 65 mph, and it could flirt with hurricane intensity (74 mph) before making landfall about 10 p.m. CDT tonight.

The storm is moving west at 10 mph.  It is expected to move slowly west northwest overnight.  By 7 p.m. tomorrow night, it will be weakening to a tropical depression and will be located midway between Tallahassee and Jacksonville.  By then, it will be moving northwest, turning sharply northeast late Monday night ahead of the approaching trough.  It will exit the coast near Charleston Tuesday night and could become a tropical storm again on Wednesday as it swipes past Cape Hatteras heading out to open sea.

IMPACTS

Wind: Winds are gusting to tropical storm force now along the coast of Northeast Florida from Daytona to Jacksonville. They will become sustained tropical storm force (39 mph or higher) at times over Southeast Georgia and Northeast Florida as far north as Brunswick and south to near Cape Canaveral.

Rain: 2-4 inches of rain generally along the NE Florida, Georgia and South Carolina coastal areas with 4-8 inch max amounts, generally between Daytona and Savannah.

Tides: 2-4 feet near and north of the landfall point over NE Florida and Georgia, with 1-2 feet into South Carolina. Rip currents are a problem north to North Carolina.

Tornadoes: There is a small chance of tornadoes from Jacksonville to just south of Savannah this evening.

OBSERVATIONS

Here are some observations from Florida:

South Carolina/Georgia observations:

Category: Tropical