The strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in May in the eastern Pacific swept ashore on a stretch of tourist beaches and fishing towns in southern Mexico on Monday.

Torrential rains and howling winds from Hurricane Agatha whipped palm trees and drove tourists and residents into shelters.

Agatha made landfall about 5 miles west of Puerto Angel as a strong Category 2 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph. But it began losing strength as it moved inland.  

Agatha is the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in May in the eastern Pacific, said Jeff Masters, meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections and the founder of Weather Underground.  Meanwhile, our weather experts offer exclusive insights on the Atlantic hurricane season in their latest episode of the podcast "Across the Sky." 

Hurricanes are terrifying and deadly forces, but experts are growing more concerned by the amount of deaths tallied up after a storm is passed, as they've observed indirect death totals increasing in recent years.