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60th Anniversary of June 8, 1953 MI/OH Tornado Outbreak


Hoosier

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60th anniversary of the June 8, 1953 outbreak is coming up so I thought I would post a little about it. The outbreak actually began in the Plains on June 7 and continued into June 9 and is probably best known for the very deadly Flint-Beecher and Worcester, MA tornadoes.

NWS Detroit has a special section dedicated to the outbreak:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dtx/1953beecher/

Of note, impressive CAPE and shear

Figure_6.jpg

The Flint-Beecher tornado is one of four F5s that have been recorded in Michigan. F5s have been documented in 1896, 1905, 1953, and 1956 with the first two being deemed F5 by Grazulis. Approximate tracks of these F5s are below. 1953 and 1956 tracks were plotted with Severeplot and 1896 and 1905 were drawn by me.

post-14-0-56407700-1370488953_thumb.png

More links...

NWS Taunton, MA slideshow on outbreak:

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/box/papers/WorcesterTornado53_files/WorcesterTornado53.html

Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint%E2%80%93Worcester_tornado_outbreak_sequence

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The Flint-Beecher tornado and the Worcester tornado certainly get some (historical) attention about this. But perhaps you should consider that an F4 tornado (or family of tornadoes) tracked from NW Ohio to NE Ohio. 6 counties were affected, and 18 people died. The official Storm Data says this tornado tracked 118 miles. Wikipedia seems to say that Grazulis considers this to be three tornadoes.

 

Wikipedia quote:

 

"Cygnet, [OH] where homes were swept away at possible F5 intensity,"

 

 

Cygnet is just a few miles away from Bowling Green.

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Im not a severe junkie by ANY stretch of the imagination...but this tornado has always fascinated me.

 

The wiki page has a VERY good read

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Flint–Beecher_tornado

Thanks Mich. Great read. From the eyewitness accounts it seemed terrifying. Seeing the aprroaching black yellow greenish lightning, to the black smoke fireballs engulfed tornado. With multiple vorticies churning

Any tornado is terrifying, but I can totally picture some black smoke monster coming at you with little warning.

The debarked, uprooted trees and mangled cars and intense helical ground scouring marks is classic f5 indication. Not to mention neighborhoods completely blown from there foundation.

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