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Hurricane Patricia: 12 Stunning Meteorological Images

Hurricane Patricia's rapid intensification into a Category 5 off the coast of Mexico has produced a number of stunning images being shared by meteorologists on social media. Here are a few of those images and some others we've compiled that illustrate the power of this extremely intense hurricane.

(MORE: Patricia Forecast | 5 Things You Should Know)

Below is an infrared satellite image shared in a tweet by the NOAA satellites twitter account showing Patricia with maximum sustained winds of 200 mph on Friday morning at 5:23 a.m. EDT.

A second infrared satellite image from Friday morning taken from the NASA Earth Science Office satellite website.

One of the first visible satellite images Friday morning of Hurricane Patricia just after sunrise. Visible satellite imagery shows what the storm would look like from space if viewed by the naked eye.

Another visible satellite image from Friday morning of Hurricane Patricia just after sunrise.

Visible satellite image of Patricia's eye on Friday. Notice you can see the ocean's surface inside the eye.

A photograph of Patricia taken on Friday by Scott Kelly who is aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

An analysis of Hurricane Patricia's wind field Friday morning. The red and gray wind barbs illustrate the strongest winds near Patricia's eye.

This animation created by senior meteorologist Stu Ostro of The Weather Channel shows infrared and visible satellite images from the same time on Thursday evening when Patricia was on its way to becoming a Category 5.

An enhanced visible satellite image of Patricia just after it reached Category 4 status early Thursday afternoon.

A full hemispheric view of the earth Thursday from the new NOAA/NASA DSCOVR:EPIC website with Hurricane Patricia circled.

Radar imagery showing the eye of Patricia from a NOAA P3 aircraft on Thursday. It was provided in a tweet by the Hurricane Hunters and shows how small the eye is with hurricane-force winds extending out 30 miles from the center.