Hurricane Beryl has roared ashore, making landfall around Matagorda, Texas at 3:50 a.m. CT Monday as a Category 1 hurricane with gusts over 80 mph.
Over the coming hours, Beryl will continue to move inland, bringing flooding rains, life-threatening storm surge, damaging wind gusts, and the threat of tornadoes. The cyclone’s powerful hurricane-force winds could lead to power outages and property damage.
Already, gusts have hit 91 mph in Freeport, 89 mph in Matagorda Bay, 85 mph in Matagorda City, and 81 mph in Palacios.
More than 90,000 electrical customers in Texas have already lost power.
Numerous Hurricane Warnings, Storm Surge Warnings and Tropical Storm Warnings were posted ahead of the storm’s arrival and are still in effect for the Texas Gulf Coast.
Storm surge is forecast to reach 3-7 feet in some spots near Beryl, and water was already pushing into the Texas coast and bays along Beryl's approach. Measurements have reached 3.2 feet in Sargent and 2.6 feet in Matagorda Bay as of 2:30 a.m. CT.
The ferocious wind gusts are blasting torrential rainfall falling at rates of 2-4 inches an hour.
Hurricane-force winds over 74 mph are likely to continue near the storm's center – which is forecast to pass near the Houston metro area later Monday morning – with tropical storm-force gusts of 40 mph or more stretching 115 miles out from Beryl's center.
