Hurricane Edouard (ISS041-E-14067) over the Atlantic Ocean, taken from the ISS on September 16, 2014 at 13:51:49 GMT (8:51:39 am Central Daylight Time). At that time, Edouard was a category 2 (moderately strong) hurricane.

Tropical cyclones, called hurricanes or typhoons depending on the part of the world where they occur, are the most devastating natural phenomenon on Earth, causing more loss of life and property than any other natural phenomena. But a new investigation on The International Space Station is studying these powerful storms from space.

There was no need to install new instruments or develop novel sensor technologies. Instead, a camera on The International Space Station simply aimed at the storm can measure cloud tops in the eyewall of a tropical cyclone. The Cyclone Intensity Measurements from the ISS (CyMISS) gathers imagery from a camera mounted in the Cupola, which is a dome-shaped observation module with seven windows and is an excellent spot for viewing Earth.

The eyewall of a cyclone is the region of extreme winds and torrential rainfall that lies just outside the cloud-free eye at the center of the storm. The camera on the ISS measures cloud-top altitude near the eye with pseudo-stereoscopy on sequences of photographic images. The intensity of a strong tropical cyclone is related to the altitude of these clouds. So making these measurements helps assess storm intensity and can also improve the accuracy of weather modeling and storm track prediction.

A montage of twelve images, each covering an area of 62 x 62 miles centered on the cloud-free eye of Edouard, taken from the ISS over the course of an 82-second interval. The bright eyewall clouds lie just outside the eye and whirl around it at speeds of up to 110 mph (up to 230 mph in the most intense hurricanes). The tops of these clouds lay 30 50,000 ft. above sea level.

Advance warning of a tropical cyclones intensity is crucial for protecting lives and property in the face of a storm. But real-time information on hazardous weather such as tropical cyclones is not available for much of the world. Small ground-based systems such as hurricane-hunting aircraft are capable of gathering storm data, but these hurricane-hunting aircraft only cover a small portion of the planet affected by such storms. These flights are expensive and dangerous (five aircraft and their crews have been lost in past years).

Using the ISS to gather measurements on storm and weather systems from space is safer, less expensive, and potentially more effective than ground observation. These instruments on the ISS provide real-time data to researchers, meteorologists and disaster response authorities. This means that studying these powerful storms from space will continue to be a major step toward alerting populations and governments around the world when a dangerous storm is approaching.

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Viewing Tropical Cyclones From The International Space Station - Forbes