Following their win in the ICC World T20 Cup, the Indian cricket team has been stranded in Barbados due to Hurricane Beryl. The team was slated to leave Barbados on Monday (July 1) at 11 am local time, and fly to New York, where they would take a connecting flight to Dubai before landing in India. However, the hurricane has led to the closure of the Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados and stalled all flight services indefinitely. #WATCH | Barbados: Electricity and water supply affected as hurricane hits the country with strong winds and rain. Team India and media from India stuck in Barbados as all flights cancelled because of curfew. pic.twitter.com/V79yOFqRFp — ANI (@ANI) July 1, 2024 What do we know about Hurricane Beryl? Hurricane Beryl is the earliest category 4 storm - sustaining winds of at least 130 miles per hour (209 kilometres per hour) - to mark the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season this year. It is currently surging through the Windward Islands, the southern part of the Lesser Antilles, which form part of the West Indies and comprise Barbados, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago. A landfall is not likely to occur but the nearest islands are expected to be heavily affected, with island communities facing the prospects of violent winds and flash flooding. The National Hurricane Centre’s advisory has forecasted "life-threatening winds and storm surge" in the Windfall Islands for Monday (July 1) morning. Hurricane warnings have been issued for Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadine Islands, Grenada and Tobago, while a tropical storm watch has been issued for Dominica, Trinidad, and parts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training said that regular classes at all schools would be suspended indefinitely from Monday, with many of these schools being used as hurricane shelters. The Barbados Water Authority (BWA) shut down water supply on Sunday, while the Barbados Light & Power Co. Ltd reported Saturday that it had no plans of cutting off electricity. Beryl is the strongest storm to impact the Windward Islands since Hurricane Ivan in September 2004. What are hurricanes and how do they form? Tropical cyclones or hurricanes use warm, moist air as fuel, and therefore form over warm ocean waters near the equator. As NASA describes it, when the warm, moist air rises upward from the surface of the ocean, it creates an area of low air pressure below. Air from the surrounding areas rushes to fill this place, eventually rising when it becomes warm and moist too. When the warm air rises and cools off, the moisture forms clouds. This system of clouds and winds continues to grow and spin, fuelled by the ocean’s heat and the water that evaporates from its surface. As such storm systems rotate faster and faster, an eye forms in the centre. Storms that form towards the north of the equator rotate counterclockwise, while those that form to the south spin clockwise because of the rotation of the Earth. Are hurricanes becoming more severe now? As hurricanes make landfall, they weaken, since they are cut off from the fuelling moisture provided by the oceans. But in a study published in the journal Nature on November 11, researchers noted that a warming world may be responsible for the increasingly slow decay of hurricanes. In the study, the researchers claim that warmer sea surface temperatures induce a slower decay by increasing the stock of moisture that a hurricane carries with it as it hits the land. Last week, the NHC noted that subtropical storm Theta, in the Northeast Atlantic, became the 29th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane season. This beats the record for the most named storms previously held by the 2005 hurricane season. What is the difference between a hurricane and a tropical storm? There is no difference. Depending on where they occur, hurricanes may be called typhoons or cyclones. As per NASA, the scientific name for all these kinds of storms is tropical cyclones. The tropical cyclones that form over the Atlantic Ocean or the eastern Pacific Ocean are called hurricanes and the ones that form in the Northwest Pacific are called typhoons. Tropical storms that form in the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian Sea are called cyclones. How do people protect themselves during a hurricane? During a hurricane, storm surge (abnormal rise of water generated by a storm) and inland flooding are the two main reasons that can cause loss of life. NHC has advised that the “safest place” to be during a major landfalling hurricane is in a reinforced interior room away from windows. “Get under a table or other piece of sturdy furniture. Use mattresses, blankets or pillows to cover your head and body. Remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions,” it said in an advisory.
