As Hurricane Larry churned via the Atlantic Ocean this weekend, astronauts on the International Space Station saved a watchful eye on the storm from space.
“From our viewpoint on @Space_Station, it looks much larger than Ida,” NASA astronaut Megan McArthur tweeted Tuesday (Sept. 7) from the orbiting laboratory.
Larry is at the moment a large Category 3 hurricane, packing sustained winds of 115 mph (85 km/h), according to the National Hurricane Center. Although it is not anticipated to make landfall, it would cross near Bermuda this week, bringing tropical storm circumstances to the island territory on Wednesday (Sept. 8) and Thursday (Sept. 9).
Related: Damage from Hurricane Ida seen from space (satellite photos)
“Hoping this one doesn’t make landfall,” McArthur tweeted Sunday (Sept. 5) together with two pictures she took of the storm from space.
While Larry will not hit the U.S. East Coast immediately, it’s already producing important storm swells that “are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” the National Hurricane Center mentioned in an update.
Hurricane Larry arrives on the heels of one other main storm, Hurricane Ida, which battered the Louisiana coast and introduced catastrophic floods to components of the japanese U.S.
Astronauts on the International Space Station are sometimes well-positioned to seize photographs of those colossal storms, because the station orbits at an altitude of about 250 miles (400 kilometers) and completes a visit across the globe each 90 minutes.
Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or comply with her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
