STORY: Strong winds lashed Grenada on Monday as Hurricane Beryl made landfall in the Caribbean, churning into the Windward Islands and threatening devastating flooding and storm surges.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center called the Category 4 storm an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation as winds from Beryl reached 150 miles per hour and dropped up to 10 inches of rain in some areas.

Michael Brennan is the hurricane center's director.

"You can see the very well defined eye in both visible and infrared satellite imagery. Beryl has re-strengthened this morning as it's gone through an eye wall replacement cycle. So now is when we're experiencing those catastrophic category 4 wind conditions in portions of the Grenadines places like Union Island, Palm Island, Petite Martinique, Petite Saint Vincent, Carriacou."

The appearance of a major hurricane this early in the Atlantic hurricane season is rare.

So is the quick strengthening of this storm according to Cristopher Rozoff, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

"It had a very intense shift in intensity from Category 1 to Category 4 storm in less than 24 hours, making it one of the most impressive rapid intensification cases in Atlantic history. And we honestly have not seen any recorded storms perform such an intensification rate prior to September 1st in the history books. So, for a storm to do this in late June is something we have not seen before."

The prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines said he was expecting a natural disaster that could continue for days.

Beryl is expected to continue thrashing the region throughout the week.

"These are the chances of hurricane force winds we're most concerned about downstream about seeing hurricane force winds in Jamaica and a hurricane watch has been issued for that island. As of this morning, there is a potential for Beryl to remain a hurricane, a powerful hurricane across the Caribbean. See, there is also a chance of hurricane force winds extending as far westward as to portions of the Yucatan Peninsula later this week."

The storm is currently moving to the west northwest at 20 miles per hour.