Hurricane Beryl passes Houston, heads inland: Update

Hurricane Beryl swept through the Houston area this morning with heavy rains and wind gusts near 90mph, bringing local flooding and cutting power to more than 2mn customers.

Beryl, which has been downgraded to a tropical storm, was about 30 miles north-northwest of Houston according to a 12pm ET bulletin from the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The storm is expected to turn towards the northeast and increase speed tonight and into Tuesday. On its current forecast track, the center of Beryl will pass over eastern Texas today and into the lower Mississippi and Ohio valleys Tuesday and Wednesday.

Beryl made landfall earlier today as a Category 1 hurricane near Matagorda, Texas, after regaining strength as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico from an earlier landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula.

A weather station in Freeport, Texas, directly south of Houston on the Gulf of Mexico reported a wind gust of 94mph earlier today while a station at the entrance to Galveston Bay and the Houston Ship Channel recorded a gust of 82mph.

Nearly 2mn Houston residents are without power as of 11:30am ET according to outages tracked by CenterPoint Energy.

Heavy rainfall of 5-10 inches, with 15 inches in some spots, was recorded across the upper Texas coast and eastern Texas, with considerable flash and urban flooding expected to continue, NHC said in its bulletin.

Water levels at the Interstate 610 bridge on the Houston Ship Channel -- home to several refineries and petrochemical plants –- were observed at 10 feet above mean low water levels at 11am ET, well into the "major flooding" range, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Several petrochemical plants pre-emptively shut down or experienced electrical surges over the weekend before Beryl hit the Texas coast today.

US Gulf coast refiners appear to have robust fuel inventories for this time of year should the storm lead to operational issues. The four-week average of Gulf coast gasoline inventories in the week ended 28 June was up by over 4pc from the same period in 2023 and up by 6pc from 2022, after hitting a near six-month high in the penultimate week of June.

The second named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, Beryl followed tropical storm Alberto, which came ashore in northeastern Mexico late last month. This year's Atlantic hurricane season is expected to be more active than normal, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with 4-7 major hurricanes that pack sustained winds of 111mph or higher possible

By Nathan Risser