U.S. Weather Bureau maps on the afternoon of June 8, 1953 showed a strong low pressure system over northern Wisconsin with a trailing cold front back into northern Missouri. A warm front was lifting northward through southern Lower Michigan. By late afternoon, the warm front was north of Flint, where temperatures had warmed into the lower 80s and dew points were approaching 70. Instability levels were very high thanks to this warm and humid airmass. The atmosphere was very dynamically charged with very high wind shear values. The cold front would provide the necessary spark.
The tornado warning process was in its embryonic stage. The use of the word “tornado†in official forecasts had been banned from 1887 until 1938. The Air Force was successfully forecasting tornadoes by 1949, but the reports were not being released for civilians. Lawmakers began to criticize the Weather Bureau for not doing more. The Air Weather Service Severe Weather Center was established in February 1951 to forecast severe storms for the military. When tornadoes tore through Alabama and Georgia on March 3, 1952, the media began asking why tornado forecasts were not being released to the public. After that, the Weather Bureau began quietly issuing tornado forecasts. The first, on March 17, 1952 was a bust. No tornadoes happened. But the second on March 21st did successfully predict part of a major outbreak across the south. A separate group called the SWU (Severe Weather Unit) was appointed in Washington and it began work on May 21, 1952. This unit would become SELS. They issued experimental forecasts through the remainder of 1952. On May 11, 1953, the New Orleans Weather Bureau Office had successfully forecast the Waco tornado after consultation with the SWI office.
As the huge storm system rumbled across the Midwest on June 7th and 8th, meteorologists at the SWU worked round the clock shifts. On June 8th, the meteorologists issued tornado forecasts for large areas of Michigan and Ohio. Strong thunderstorms began breaking out by late afternoon over southern Lower Michigan. As dark approached, one storm became severe near Flushing. A tornado sizzled down from the thundercloud just north of Flushing and tracked toward Flint. It targeted the highly populated residential sections of northern Flint and through the community of Beecher. The devastation was severe. Cars were thrown hundreds of yards. Neighborhoods along Coldwater Road were turned into piles of wreckage. The damage from the tornado was rated F5. When all was said and done, 116 people lay dead. It is the last tornado to kill 100 people in the United States and the ninth deadliest in U.S. history. Twenty families suffered multiple deaths.
Atomic testing was blamed by some for the unusually severe tornado season that year that included deadly tornadoes outside the traditional tornado alley, including Flint and the devastating Worcester tornado the next day. It was even debated on the Senate floor, but no link was ever discovered.
