Tropical Storm Beryl is forecast to become a major storm by Monday

Tropical Storm Beryl is expected to intensify into a major hurricane as it moves closer to the Caribbean, as reported by the National Hurricane Center.

Before the storm approaches the Windward Islands, which include Grenada, Martinique, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, it will intensify into a hurricane. At this moment, Beryl is 820 miles southeast of Barbados and has maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. It is traveling 23 miles per hour westward.

“A relatively quick westward to west-northwestward motion is expected during the next few days,” the National Hurricane Center said in an update Saturday. “On the forecast track, the system is expected to move across the Windward Islands late Sunday night and Monday.”

According to the National Hurricane Center, hurricane conditions are possible on Sunday night or Monday morning in Barbados, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada, for which hurricane watches have been issued. Martinique and Tobago are under a tropical storm watch, with stormy conditions expected by Monday morning.

The storm poses a threat of heavy rainfall, hurricane-force winds, and potentially dangerous storm surge and waves across the central and western Caribbean.

By the end of the weekend, Beryl might have lashed portions of the Lesser Antilles, an arching line of islands that forms a shattered barrier between the Caribbean Sea and the open Atlantic. Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada are all under a hurricane watch. Martinique and Tobago have been placed under a tropical storm watch.