NASA has shared dramatic video of Hurricane Franklin as remains out to sea in the Atlantic Ocean.
The footage was captured from the International Space Station (ISS) 260 miles above Earth as the orbital facility passed over the region on Tuesday. The video begins with a view looking straight down on the eye of the storm before pulling out to show the weather system against a background of blue ocean and the curvature of Earth.
“External cameras on the ISS captured views of major Hurricane Franklin at 9:56 a.m. ET on Tuesday, August 29, 2023, as the station flew 260 miles overhead,” the space agency said in a message accompanying the video, adding that “Franklin was located over the Atlantic well out to sea at the time of the flyover, packing winds of 130 miles an hour. Franklin is moving north-northeast over the Atlantic, according to the National Hurricane Center.”
Another storm, Hurricane Idalia, is expected to make landfall in Florida early Wednesday. This image, captured by NASA’s Terra satellite, shows Idalia approaching the state from the southwest.
Hurricane #Idalia strengthened to a category 1 in the Gulf of Mexico. @NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image on Aug. 29 around 11:35 am ET. https://t.co/7owGAONurX pic.twitter.com/aFRMWqD5ni
— NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) August 29, 2023
For just a few bucks, the Hurricane Tracker smartphone app for iOS and Android offers customizations for alerts on newly formed storms or for when a weather system reaches land, along with various other features. The app uses data from the National Hurricane Center to share the latest storm news.
Hurricane Franklin isn’t the first such weather system to be captured by the cameras on the ISS. In recent years, the space-based facility has also offered unique views of Ian, Genevieve, and Laura, with extraordinary images offering an idea of the sheer enormity of the storms.
