The spectacular Worcester tornado of 1953 will be on display at the Bosworth Lecture Series on Thursday, Feb. 13 at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Free Library. The event is free and open to the public.

Featuring rare archival film footage, Bill Chittick’s presentation of the tornado of June 9, 1953, reveals a storm that destroyed Assumption College, shattered the record books and forever influenced the nation's understanding of storm forecasting.

The tornado was a deadly one in Worcester, killing 95 persons and leaving 10,000 homeless in the nation's costliest tornado at the time. The mile-wide storm reached EF5 intensity with winds above 200 mph. It lifted a storage tank weighing several tons and tossed it across the road.

Part of a three-day tornado outbreak, the storm was on the ground for nearly 90 minutes, traveling 48 miles across central Massachusetts, making it the 21st deadliest tornado in the U.S. It caused equivalent to $349 million in damage to over 4,000 buildings.

The National Weather Service tracked the storm from the Colorado Rocky Mountains, through Flint, MI, where it killed 116 then over Ontario and Lake Erie, reemerging over mid NY State. Unfortunately, the weather service did not include a tornado in its Mass forecast in fear it would cause panic among local citizens.

"It was an anomaly." Mr Chittick said. "A tornado is rare in the northeast," explaining why weather authorities were reluctant to incite unnecessary public alarm.

Mr. Chittick said his research of the tornado helped prompt the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to convene a blue-ribbon panel and redetermine the Worcester Tornado’s EF-scale rating.

A native of Fitchburg, Mass., Mr Chittick said one of his first childhood memories was the Worcester super-cell tornado that afternoon in 1953. Next year his family rode out Hurricane Carol from a waterfront cottage on Cape Cod, and in 1956 he experienced another tornado in Fitchburg. It was the beginning of a lifelong interest in extraordinary weather events.

Mr Chittick is a resident of Bristol, active in civic affairs including historic preservation. He works for WIMCO vacation home rental agency.

The Roswell S. Bosworth Jr. Lecture Series is presented by the Men's Club, a local organization that pays tribute to its founding member, former editor and publisher of the East Bay Newspapers, with lectures of interest to the public.