As Hurricane Florence barrels toward the East Coast, maybe nothing can portend the storm's wrath quite like photos taken from space. On Wednesday, NASA shared a view of Hurricane Florence taken that morning from a high-definition camera outside the International Space Station (embedded below). The hurricane, which has been upgraded to a category 4, is expected to pummel the coastlines of South Carolina and North Carolina in the coming days, with the National Hurricane Center warning of a "life-threatening storm surge" as well as catastrophic flash flooding. Indeed, NASA called the view of Florence from the Space Station "stark" and "sobering."

Additionally, European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst took to Twitter on Wednesday to share photos of the hurricane from space, while stressing the severity of the storm. TWEET Hurricane Florence is "so enormous," says the tweet, that despite being in space, the astronauts could only capture the storm with a super-wide angle lens. In another image tweeted by Gerst on Wednesday (one of which was NASA's "Image of the Day") the seriousness of the storm can be clearly seen. "Ever stared down the gaping eye of a category 4 hurricane? It's chilling, even from space," Gerst captioned the photos. TWEET Another photo (embedded below) was snapped on Sept. 10 by astronaut Ricky Arnold while aboard the International Space Station. The photo shows the churning storm, which according to Arnold, was later joined by Hurricane Isaac and Hurricane Helene.