Category 4 Hurricane Beryl makes landfall in the east Caribbean with 150 mph winds

“We’re getting lots of rain, massive wave action. A lot of houses have lost their roofs and the brunt hasn’t hit us yet,” Gonsalves said. “In Carriacou, they’ve lost a lot of roofs, and in Union Islands.”

Wind gusts of 175 mph were registered for Carriacou and Petite Martinique in the southern Grenadines.

In preparations for the hurricane’s passage, several islands in the storm’s path shut down early on Sunday, which included ceasing all air travel. Ahead of the storm, Gonsalves declared a disaster area for the whole country, while Grenada’s government declared a state of emergency.

“It’s bad no question about it, a lot of homes are down, electricity is off. It’s bad, it’s bad,” Gonsalves said.

So far Monday, five arrivals and six departures have been canceled from Miami International Airport due to the storm. Any flight to or from Barbados, Trinidad, St. Vincent, Grenada, and St. Lucia has been canceled.

Grenada Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell told the Miami Herald the island remained under a state of emergency on Monday in the hours before the storm hit. As of 7 a.m., he said no major damage had been reported. The hurricane made landfall in the country around 11:10 a.m.

“The next eight hours are absolutely critical,” he said. “We expect significant rainfall, we expect significant wind gusts and we expect significant storm surges.”

What’s next?

Once it clears the Windward Islands, Beryl’s future is a little less clear. The latest hurricane center forecast track keeps the storm on a straight shot to the Yucatan, where it could make landfall near Belize as a Category 2 hurricane Friday morning.

On the way, it could pass dangerously close to Jamaica on Wednesday, enough to lash the island with high winds and storm surge.

On the other side of the Yucatan, short-lived Tropical Storm Chris fizzled out early Monday, dumping some rain over Mexico and crossing another name off the list.

The next contender could be right behind Beryl, a disturbance the hurricane center has tagged with a 50% chance of strengthening into a tropical depression within the next seven days, and a 20% chance of forming in the next two, as of the 2 p.m. update.

Those figures are a solid downgrade from Sunday evening’s figures, a sign that the cooler water left in Beryl’s wake and increased wind shear nearby could slow down the development of anything behind it.

“Environmental conditions appear marginally conducive for additional development of this system, and a tropical depression could form by the middle part of this week while it moves generally westward at 15 to 20 mph across the central and western tropical Atlantic,” forecasters wrote.

The next name on the list is Debby.

Miami Herald staff writer Vinod Shreeharsha contributed to this report.