Satellite data from NASA shows strong rainmaking potential as the depression moves out of the Caribbean and inland this weekend.

Strong thunderstorms are the life's blood of tropical cyclones, and infrared and radar satellite data from NASA today confirms that the eastern Pacific Ocean's first hurricane has plenty of them and they're over 9 miles high.

An instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite noticed increasing colder cloud top temperatures of tropical depression 15 in the south-central Caribbean just before it strengthened into Tropical Storm Matthew late on Sept. 23.

The fifteenth tropical depression of the Atlantic Ocean season has formed in the south-central Caribbean Sea, and the GOES-13 satellite captured its swirling mass of clouds and showers in a visible image today.

U.S. forecasters described Hurricane Ike as "extremely dangerous" as it spun over the Atlantic Ocean Thursday tracking towards the Caribbean. At 5 a.m., the storm was a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 145 mph, about 550 miles northeast of the Leeward Islands, the U.S.