WSR-57 Radar

In 1959 the first "modern" radar, the WSR-57, was commissioned at the Miami hurricane forecast center. Over the next few years, this technology was installed across the country. Detroit received its WSR-57 on September 12, 1961. The WSR-57 offered some improvement over the WSR-3, but with coarse reflectivity and no velocity data available, the ability to forecast tornadoes was limited. The picture below shows the WSR-57 image of the tornado that struck West Bloomfield in Oakland County on March 20, 1976.