NASA's precipitation satellite captures a 3-D view of Hurricane Matthew.
When Hurricane Matthew made landfall, it became the first Category 4 hurricane to hit Haiti in over 50 years.
NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite flew directly over the storm,
which gave clues to understanding the storm's behavior.
Red shows intense rainfall and green shows less rain.
Blue is frozen precipitation.
Heavy rainfall was seen in the center, which indicated the storm had a lot of heat energy
and would therefore remain active and not weaken.
The top of the storm was about 8 miles high.
GPM can monitor hurricanes as they change state.
The satellite can also show the entire history of rainfall along the storm's path.
This is when the storm began to rapidly intensify from a Category 1 to Category 5 hurricane in less than 24 hours.
As the eye moved away, the outer rainbands caused further intense rain.
When the storm made landfall on Haiti, over 20 inches of rainfall is estimated to have fallen.
GPM observations from space will help scientists
to better understand where and how storms develop.