Historic hurricane Beryl, a powerful Category 5 storm

Hurricane Beryl was tearing through the Caribbean on Tuesday as a record-breaking Category 5 storm.

After ripping doors, windows and roofs off homes across the southeastern Caribbean on Monday, it is now forecast to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge to Jamaica.

It took Beryl only 42 hours to strengthen from a tropical depression to a major hurricane Beryl was forecast to start losing intensity on Tuesday but still be near major hurricane strength when it passes near or over Jamaica early Wednesday, near the Cayman Islands on Thursday and into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Friday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

Beryl made landfall on the island of Carriacou in Grenada on Monday as the earliest Category 4 storm in the Atlantic, then late in the day the center said its winds had increased to Category 5 strength, meaning it had winds of 157 mph or higher.

As of late Tuesday morning, the hurricane had maximum sustained winds of 160 mph, the center said.

Beryl is the earliest Category 5 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin and is only the second Category 5 storm recorded in July since 2005, according to the hurricane center.

As of late Tuesday morning, Beryl was about 235 miles southeast of Isla Beata in the Dominican Republic and 555 miles east-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica. It was moving west-northwest at 22 mph.