Observing Storms from the International Space Station

On October 20, 2023, astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli looked down from the International Space Station, orbiting 260 miles above Earth, and photographed this storm swirling over the Arabian Sea, less than 700 miles off the coast of Oman. The spiral of clouds curves inward toward a loose center, and along the top edge you can spot the thin blue line of the atmosphere separating our planet from the black of space.

Astronaut photos like this one are only part of how NASA keeps an eye on storms. Satellites do much of the heavy lifting, gathering data that scientists turn into tools for disaster response. The Global Precipitation Measurement satellite, a joint project between NASA and Japan's space agency JAXA, tracks the rainfall inside tropical cyclones and hurricanes, mapping how hard the rain is falling so communities get early warning of possible floods. After a storm hits land, other satellites step in to map how far the flooding has spread, and radar instruments can even see through cloud cover when regular cameras cannot.

All of this feeds into weather forecasts that save lives. What looks here like a beautiful pattern from far above is, closer to the ground, a serious event that people rely on scientists to understand and predict.