Beryl expected to hit Texas, regain hurricane strength

Tropical Storm Beryl is forecast to re-strengthen into a hurricane and make landfall on the Texas coast in the early hours of Monday morning, bringing dangerous conditions to the U.S. after it hammered parts of Mexico.

Much of the Texas coast was put under a hurricane warning Sunday. The National Hurricane Center warned of “life-threatening storm surge inundation” for coastal areas, as well as significant flooding.

Beryl, the first hurricane of the season, became the earliest storm ever to reach Category 5 in the Atlantic. It battered the Windward Islands in the southern Caribbean and Jamaica before making landfall in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula on Friday as a Category 2 storm.

It weakened to a tropical storm as it moved over the Yucatán, before now threatening to strengthen again into a hurricane as it approaches Texas. The storm is expected to make landfall near Corpus Christi at about 1 a.m. Monday.

“As Beryl approaches the Texas coast on Sunday, a dip in the jet stream will act like a magnet and pull the storm more to the north and northwest,” AccuWeather meteorologist Bernie Reyno said in a statement. “We expect Beryl to slow down as it approaches the Texas coast, and that could cause some big flooding problems.”

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) issued a preemptive disaster declaration for much of the state on Saturday in preparation for the storm’s impact.

“Beryl is a determined storm, and incoming winds and potential flooding will pose a serious threat to Texans who are in Beryl’s path at landfall and as it makes its way across the state for the following 24 hours,” Patrick said in a statement.

Parts of Texas could see up to two feet of rain, AccuWeather forecast, with much of the eastern parts of the state forecast for 8-12 inches of rain.

Beryl is forecast to turn east as it moves into the U.S., set to move towards Arkansas by Tuesday as a tropical depression and into Tennessee and Kentucky by Wednesday.