From the Weather Channel:
Hurricane Beryl became the earliest Atlantic Category 5 on record overnight following a historic Windward Islands landfall earlier Monday. It’s not done yet, with Beryl likely to spread its impacts across Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and the Yucatan Peninsula before facing an uncertain future in the Gulf of Mexico. Current status: Beryl remains a Category 5 with maximum sustained winds of 165 mph over the eastern Caribbean Sea this morning and is moving west-northwest.
Beryl is the earliest hurricane to reach Category 5 strength on record in the Atlantic, and it beat the previous record by more than two weeks. The previous earliest Category 5 was Hurricane Emily on July 16 during the hyperactive 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. Record warm water temperature have likely catapulted Beryl’s intensity.
From AP:
Hurricane Beryl has strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane, and the National Hurricane Center (NHC) says the storm could strengthen into a Category 4 hurricane by early Monday morning as it approaches the Caribbean islands.
The second named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season quickly strengthened from a tropical depression into a tropical storm and then a hurricane within 24 hours, which was helped by the atmospheric conditions.