Hurricane Beryl broke multiple records including a tornado outbreak

Florida Public Radio Emergency Network (FPREN) Storm Center | By Leslie Hudson

Hurricane Beryl stayed in the headlines for nearly 2 weeks and it rewrote the record books as it moved across the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and then eventually made landfall in Texas.

Beryl developed in the Atlantic on June 28, 2024, and intensified to a Category 5 hurricane, the earliest ever recorded in July Atlantic hurricane.

Beryl also set several other records including the first Category 4 hurricane in June ever recorded, and the earliest Category 4 hurricane ever recorded.

But perhaps Beryl’s most destructive record was that it produced the most tornado warnings in a single July day, 110 warnings in 24 hours.

Of those warnings, nearly 50 of them became confirmed tornadoes.

Beryl slammed into Carriacou, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, and the Yucatan Peninsula. It eventually made landfall on the Texas coast as a weak Category 1 hurricane, but it caused catastrophic damage while breaking more records.

Tornado warnings stretched across the United States as Beryl charged through the country. Beryl produced over two hundred tornado warnings in one day, the most tornado warnings ever made in a singular day in July.

The outbreak stretched from Texas to Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New York. Among actual confirmed tornadoes, rather than simply warnings, six of those were EF2 or stronger. That included an EF3 in Mt. Vernon, Indiana, the strongest July tornado to occur in the NWS-Paducah, Kentucky, forecast area since 1950.

The number of tornado warnings from Beryl in one day set a new record previously held by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 when around 90 tornado warnings were issued. Beryl also set a record for the most tornado warnings issued in a day, or even in a month, by the NWS office in Shreveport, where 67 advisories were issued Monday.

Beryl and its remnant triggered heavy rain and inland flash flooding from Texas to Maine. The most serious flash flooding was triggered in upstate New York, northern Vermont, northern New Hampshire and Maine on July 10 and 11, where up to six inches of rain fell in about 24 hours, washing out roads and flooding some towns exactly one year after devastating floods struck in the exact same region.