Beryl became the season’s first major hurricane on Sunday, reaching Category 4 strength as it approached the Caribbean with winds topping 130 mph, forecasters said.

Beryl has strengthened rapidly since forming and is likely to bring “life-threatening winds and storm surge” on its approach to the far eastern Caribbean early Monday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

A Hurricane Hunter aircraft investigated the hurricane on Sunday, recording maximum sustained wind speeds of at least 130 mph with higher gusts. It is forecast to continue strengthening as it sweeps through the Caribbean Sea.

Jamaica, Belize and parts of Mexico were within Beryl’s cone Sunday.

The forecast for Beryl includes “a life-threatening storm surge” of as much as 6 to 9 feet and 3 to 6 inches of rain across Barbados and the Windward Islands Sunday into Monday, increasing the potential for flash flooding, according to the hurricane center,

Meanwhile, a tropical storm watch may be issued later Sunday for a portion of the eastern coast of Mexico due to another storm system, forecasters said Sunday. It’s possible a short-lived Tropical Storm Chris could form from a system moving across the Caribbean and headed toward inland Mexico.

Forecasters also said Sunday that a tropical wave in the eastern Atlantic off Africa could become a tropical depression by midweek as it moves toward the eastern and central Caribbean.

Hurricane warnings are in effect across the eastern Caribbean for Beryl, as the islands braced for the first hurricane of what’s expected to be an extremely active storm season.

At 11 a.m. Sunday, the storm was 355 miles east-southeast of Barbados and moving west at 21 mph.

Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 15 miles from Beryl’s center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 80 miles.

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