As Irene moves in on North Carolina, NASA satellite photos shows its diameter is now about one-third the length of the whole U.S. Atlantic coastline.

NOAA's GOES-13 satellite saw Irene as a tropical depression forming off the African coast and then as a hurricane moving through the Bahamas Thursday morning.

The GOES-13 image shows Irene to be almost one-third the size of the U.S. East Coast.

A NASA Television YouTube video here shows new views of the storm as it churned over the Bahamas at Wednesday afternoon. The video, captured 230 miles above the Earth by cameras on the International Space Station, reveals that Irene is moving northwest as a Category 3 hurricane, packing winds of 120 miles an hour. Irene is expected to strengthen to a Category 4 storm as it heads toward the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Eastern Seaboard and the middle Atlantic and New England states.

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Hurricane Irene Tracker
The GOES-13 satellite saw Hurricane Irene moving through the Bahamas on August 25, 2011 at 1402 UTC (10:02 a.m. EDT) and far to the east was newly born Tropical Depression 10 (far left). Irene dwarfs Tropical Depression 10, and Irene is about 1/3rd the size of the entire U.S. East coast. NASA/NOAA GOES Project
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