NASA released stunning videos shot by the International Space Station this week that showed Hurricane Lester creeping toward Hawaii.

Cameras mounted outside the space station captured the images of Lester among three hurricanes that were sweeping across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans on Tuesday.

One of the other cyclones seen in the videos, Hurricane Madeline, ended up veering away from Hawaii. It had weakened to a tropical storm by Wednesday but still brought wind gusts up to 60 mph and rain to parts of the islands.

NASA released two videos from the International Space Station as it orbited 257 miles above Earth. One video, lasting less than a minute, was a time-lapse of when the hurricanes were in view of the space station. Of the three tropical systems, Lester was the clearest in view of the station.

The other video, running almost 11 minutes, was the same footage but shown at regular speed as the space station flew above each storm system.

Since the videos were released, Hurricane Lester has continued its path toward Hawaii. On Thursday, the National Weather Service in Honolulu issued a hurricane watch for the Big Island and Maui County. The storm is predicted to reach the area on Friday night and could bring damaging wind, heavy rain, high surf and flooding during Labor Day weekend.

NASA also released an image of Hurricane Lester on Thursday that was captured by the climate- and weather-tracking Suomi NPP satellite on Wednesday.

Hurricane Lester
Hurricane Lester is seen Wednesday by the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite as the cyclone creeped toward Hawaii. 

The weather service warned on Thursday that even though Hurricane Lester’s current direction shows it traveling slightly northeast of the islands, “it would take only a small leftward shift in the track to directly and profoundly affect the state.”

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