(Bloomberg) -- Beryl’s breakneck intensification into a major hurricane is a grim sign for the rest of the Atlantic storm season, which is still months away from its typical peak. 

In just two days, Beryl went from an unnamed tropical depression to a Category 4 hurricane, the second most powerful on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. It’s the earliest in the year that a storm has reached that strength in records going back to 1851, said Alex DaSilva, lead hurricane forecaster for AccuWeather Inc. 

Beryl is the latest indication of how extreme heat driven by climate change is triggering weather disasters around the world. The area of the Atlantic between the Caribbean and Cabo Verde Islands near Africa, where history’s worst hurricanes have been born, doesn’t usually fire up until mid-August or later. But this year, abnormally hot ocean temperatures are providing fuel for dangerous storms to take shape earlier.

Ocean temperatures recently went on a 15-month streak of setting daily records, an indication of how much heat is in them globally.

Beryl beat Dennis as the earliest Category 4 hurricane. Dennis reached that strength in July 2005, the year that produced a record 28 storms including Katrina. Beryl is also unusual in that it became a major hurricane far to the south and east of where such strong storms typically develop, giving it more time to strengthen as it crosses the warm waters of the Caribbean and the Gulf.

“This isn’t a good sign for the upcoming season,” said Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University. 

Typically, storms that form early in the hurricane season that begins June 1 aren’t very powerful and tend to develop from weather systems moving off North America. So a tropical storm might show up in the Gulf of Mexico or along the coast of the Carolinas in the US. On average, the first hurricane arrives on Aug. 11 and the first major storm hits by September 1, the US National Hurricane Center said.

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--With assistance from Eric Roston.

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