It’s very easy to feel worried and anxious about an incoming storm while you are watching the news. However, all you are seeing are snippets of the activity here and there. It’s difficult for traditional forms of media to capture the entire magnitude of Hurricane Irma. However, NASA did a very excellent job at letting us know of Irma's true magnitude.
While we are down on Earth witnessing and experiencing the storm first hand or through the television, the astronauts on the International Space Station got a unique perspective of the storm, which showed its true scale.
NASA astronaut, Randy Bresnik, snapped an image of Hurricane Irma when it was nearing Cuba, which he posted on his Twitter account!
No, the picture above is not an image that's been generated by a computer like the one that you would see during a local weather forecast. It’s an actual image of our planet taken from space. The massive wisp which has spirals coming from the center of its eye is actually Hurricane Irma.
"Tonight, many people are in the path and wake of Hurricane Irma," the caption of the tweet read.
Bresnik’s tweet was shared almost a thousand times and it has received more than 15,000 likes. The hurricane looked even more menacing in the photo that Bresnik shot when the storm moved on its way towards Florida. The image was given a caption of: "The tentacles of Hurricane Irma's bow waves are clawing their way up Florida..."
Bresnik even captured the impact of Hurricane Irma on the islands that were in its path including Turks and Caicos.
"What a difference 1 single week makes; Turks and Caicos Islands before and after Hurricane Irma," says Bresnik.
Bresnik became a NASA astronaut back in 2004. He was watching the hurricane about 260 miles from Earth and now is following another hurricane, Hurricane Jose. Although Bresnik thinks that Jose isn't as big or as destructive as Irma, there’s still a possibility that it will have disastrous effects, especially to the areas that have been hit by the two previous storms.
"Hurricane Irma is massive. As for Hurricane Jose, it is not as big but it will be destructive to the areas that have been previously hit," says Bresnik.
Bresnik also served in the US Marine Corps as Second Lieutenant. He’s giving us and the entire world an entirely different take on storm and hurricane watching. What’s shocking is how something that’s so destructive on Earth can look almost serene and beautiful from above.
The extreme flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey forced Houston's Johnson Space Center to close but leave essential personnel in order to keep astronauts including Bresnik safe and healthy while in the Space Station. The working personnel have families and homes that were faced with high winds and flooding.
