As Hurricane Larry churned through the Atlantic Ocean this weekend, astronauts at the International Space Station kept 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 currently a massive Category 3 hurricane, packing sustained winds of 115 mph (85 km/h), according to the National Hurricane Center. Although it isn’t expected to make landfall, it will pass close to Bermuda this week, bringing tropical storm conditions 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) along with two photographs she took of the storm from space.
While Larry won’t hit the U.S. East Coast directly, it is already producing significant storm swells that “are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” the National Hurricane Center said in an update.
Hurricane Larry arrives on the heels of another major storm, Hurricane Ida, which battered the Louisiana coast and brought catastrophic floods to parts of the eastern U.S.
Astronauts at the International Space Station are often well-positioned to capture images of these colossal storms, as the station orbits at an altitude of about 250 miles (400 kilometers) and completes a trip around the globe every 90 minutes.
Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
