NASA recorded 'a stark and sobering' video of Hurricane Florence from the International Space Station

• Hurricane Florence is predicted to slam into the US East Coast as an "extremely dangerous major hurricane" overnight on Thursday.
• The storm may stall over South Carolina and North Carolina, dump several feet of rain, and trigger widespread floods.
• A camera aboard the International Space Station recorded video of Hurricane Florence on Wednesday morning, when it was about 500 miles offshore.
• NASA called the footage "a stark and sobering view" of the storm.

Hurricane Florence is blowing sustained winds of up to 130 mph as it barrels toward the US East Coast as a Category 4 storm.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) predicts that Florence's outer bands - and tropical-force winds - will begin to arrive Thursday morning, with the rest of the storm plowing through the area through the weekend.

Florence's predicted path as of Wednesday has it making landfall on the South Carolina coast, just south of North Carolina. The NHC says the storm may push a "life-threatening" surge of seawater ashore into these and other areas.

However, the storm is 500-600 miles wide and may stall over several states. The NHC says this may bring widespread and potentially "catastrophic" flooding far inland, since forecasters predict Florence may dump several feet of rain on some areas of the East Coast.

Read More: What that Category 4 label tells us about Hurricane Florence's strength

On Wednesday morning, a high-definition video camera outside of the International Space Station recorded footage of Hurricane Florence.

The camera "captured a stark and sobering view" of the storm below "as it churned across the Atlantic with winds of 130 miles an hour," NASA said on Twitter.

The clip above is sped up roughly 18 times, while the original footage that NASA uploaded to Twitter and YouTube lasts more than three minutes.

An astronaut in space also photographed Florence and two other major storms in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday.

The space station flies over Earth from an altitude of about 250 miles. The football-field-size laboratory moves at a clip of roughly 17,500 mph to stay in constant free-fall (what we call an orbit) around the planet.

Watch NASA's full video below:

Read more of Business Insider's hurricane coverage:

• 'Disaster is at the doorstep': Hurricane Florence is churning toward the Carolinas, bringing life-threatening storm surge and rainfall
• Hurricane Florence could bring 40 inches of rain and 13 feet of floodwater in a 'catastrophic' landfall
• The 14 most important things you should do to prepare for a hurricane
• South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia are under mandatory evacuations as Hurricane Florence approaches. Here are the areas affected and what to do if you're in them.
• Residents in the Carolinas and Virginia are rushing to prepare for Hurricane Florence - here's what it looks like on the ground