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Howie Bluestein
Wed Jun 11, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
New England's worst twister, the Worcester Tornado struck fifty years ago this week. That
storm caught the attention of a little boy in a nearby town.
Bob Henson has the story.
For over 20 years Howie Bluestein has been a professor, researcher, and storm chaser at the
University of Oklahoma. His work helped inspire the movie "Twister." But Bluestein was a
mere lad on June 9, 1953, when a massive tornado struck Worcester, Massachusetts.
HB: I was about 5 years old and living north of Boston, and I remember that I was outside
doing what five-year-olds do--I was playing. And my mother called me in the house--she was a
little frantic, I think. The sky was sort of yellowish and very hazy. It looked a little bit
different than the way it usually looks. And my mother said, "Come in the house--there's a
tornado" and to entice me in the house, she told me that it lifts little boys up and carries
them away. I'm not sure I believed that, and I don't think I wanted to come back in the
house, but I distinctly remember that happening.
The Worcester tornado wasn't the only storm to intrigue Bluestein.
HB: I think that the Worcester tornado certainly got me excited about weather, but then so
did New England snowstorms, and we had several hurricanes pass by Boston the following year.
But we also had lightning strike the antenna of our TV and I watched a television explode in
front of my face once. So the Worcester tornado was one in a series of exciting weather
events that caught my fancy.
Bob Henson brought this story to us from Boulder, Colorado. The Weather Notebook receives
funding from Subaru of America, and The National Science Foundation.
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