Recovery efforts for Hurricane Beryl are underway after the storm brought damaging winds and heavy rainfall to Southeast Texas Monday. 

The category 1 hurricane killed at least seven people as of Tuesday morning, Harris County Officials confirmed. 

As CenterPoint works to restore electricity to more than 1 million customers, high temperatures are expected Tuesday and throughout the rest of the week. 

Hurricane Beryl is wreaking havoc in parts of the Caribbean – and putting the role of climate change under the spotlight.

With maximum sustained wind speeds of more than 160mph (257km/h), it became the earliest category five Atlantic hurricane in records going back around 100 years.

In fact, there has only been one previous recorded case of a category five Atlantic hurricane in July – Hurricane Emily, on 16 July 2005.

The causes of individual storms are complex, making it difficult to fully attribute specific cases to climate change.

Hurricane Beryl roared through open waters Tuesday as a powerful Category 4 storm heading toward Jamaica after earlier crossing islands in the southeast Caribbean, killing at least six people.

A hurricane warning was in effect for Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, and Cayman Brac. Beryl was losing intensity but was forecast to still be near major-hurricane strength when it passes near or over Jamaica early Wednesday, near the Cayman Islands on Thursday and into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Every year at this time, when hurricane season rolls around, corporate media start pumping out headlines linking the severity of hurricanes to climate change. But is there causation or correlation? And if changes in the climate do affect hurricanes, is it in the way climate activists claim?

Climatologist David Legates says, “[If] we have colder periods, we will get more hurricane activity. If we have warmer periods, the hurricane activity tends to drop off.”

An above-average Atlantic hurricane season is expected for 2024, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday, with the forecast for named storms the highest the agency has predicted in a seasonal outlook.

“This season is looking to be an extraordinary one in a number of ways,” NOAA Administration Rick Spinrad said at a news conference Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington.

The entire East Coast will soon feel the impact of a dangerous storm that's set to bring heavy rain and strong winds ahead of the holiday travel rush.

The worst of the rain -- 4 to 6 inches -- is forecast from Florida to the Carolinas.

The torrential rain will first strike Florida on Saturday.

Severe thunderstorms are possible from Miami to Orlando to Tampa. Residents should be prepared for flooding, damaging winds and possible tornadoes.

Tropical Storm Ophelia made landfall along the North Carolina coast early Saturday, bringing with it the potential for damaging winds, dangerous storm surge and up to seven inches of rain, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Ophelia made landfall around 6:15 a.m. near North Carolina's Emerald Isle with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph, the agency wrote in an update posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.

Storm Lee has left 80,000 properties without power and is expected to make landfall around Nova Scotia at 15:00 local time (18:00 GMT) on Saturday.

The storm has become a post-tropical cyclone but is producing hurricane-force winds of 80 mph (130 km/h), the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

Flights and ferry crossings have been cancelled and millions in New England and Canada are under storm warnings.

Lee will bring strong winds, rain and coastal flooding, according to the NHC.