Tropical trouble brewing in Atlantic months ahead of schedule

• If it is named, which is likely to happen this weekend, it would become tropical storm Beryl.
• Typically, June tropical storms and hurricanes develop closer to the U.S., such as in the Gulf of Mexico or near Florida, where the waters are hotter.
• But ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic basin entered this hurricane season at record to near-record highs, part of a global fever that spiked to new heights in 2023-2024 and is at least partly tied to human-caused climate change.

Threat level: Nearly every reliable computer model intensifies this storm, some into a powerful hurricane, and takes it west, into the Caribbean next week.

• Hurricane Center forecasters noted this morning that conditions are likely to be "unusually conducive for late June" across the central and western tropical Atlantic.
• It could eventually affect the U.S. in about 10 days, but that is subject to a high degree of uncertainty.