In the hours after Hurricane Beryl made landfall on the island of Carriacou, a floating ocean drone intercepted the northern edge of the historically powerful storm in the Caribbean Sea.
The uncrewed research vessel, dubbed a saildrone, crossed paths with Hurricane Beryl 100 nautical miles south of Puerto Rico on Tuesday morning, according to California-based data company Saildrone Inc. The drone was 95 nautical miles from the eye of the Category 5 storm.
Dramatic footage documented by the drone shows waves towering over 25 feet tall, roughly the same size of the saildrone if it was flipped vertically. The vehicle was in tropical storm conditions as gusts blew around 61 mph, according to the company.
Below: See video footage from an ocean drone, dubbed a saildrone, inside Hurricane Beryl on Tuesday morning.
The drone was launched from St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands in mid-June and was expected to begin sending hurricane data to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration the first week of August. But with the arrival of Hurricane Beryl, the company decided to deploy it early. This particular drone, which the company calls SD-1041, is one of a dozen vessels that will be sent into the ocean this hurricane season to gather important storm data.
The company is partnering with federal meteorologists to study what happens on the ocean surface during a hurricane, according to the company. Last year, the company launched a similar drone from St. Petersburg into Hurricane Idalia before it made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend.
Beryl became a “potentially catastrophic” Category 5 hurricane late Monday night in the eastern Caribbean, according to the National Hurricane Center. As of Tuesday afternoon, Beryl was churning south of the Dominican Republic with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph.
At one point reaching maximum winds of 165 mph, Beryl is the strongest July Atlantic hurricane on record, according to Philip Klotzbach, a hurricane meteorologist at Colorado State University. The storm broke the previous record set by Hurricane Emily in 2005, which topped out at 160 mph.
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