I recently did a story on the 30th anniversary of the Windsor Locks tornado. It was really interesting to go back and look at all the old footage. I wish I could remember that day but I only remember hearing about it and not fully understanding what had happened. I think it was shortly after that event that I started to become  interested in weather.

What is really amazing about that tornado was the fact that only 3 people died. The tornado was an F4 and hit a pretty populated area, touching down on the edge of a major airport.

It is also amazing how far technology has advanced from 30 years ago. I remember watching the old radar from the National Weather Service at Bradley International while I was growing up and it was always showing ground clutter. You could never tell if it was really raining or not from that radar. For this area we really had to depend on the radars from Chatham and Albany.

Now  TV stations like ours, have their own radars and the National Weather Service has a network of very powerful and much more sophisticated Doppler Radars and they are working on another more advanced radar system for the future.

On the day of the 30 anniversary of the Windsor Locks tornado a Tornado Warning was actually issued for southern Connecticut.  And as I was watching the Connecticut stations, they were displaying the warning then breaking into programming for nonstop coverage until it expired. That did not happen 30 years ago or even 20 years ago. There was no warning for the Windsor Locks tornado and back then most warnings were not issued until a tornado was actually spotted by someone. Today warnings can actually be issued based on what the radar is showing. Indicating that a tornado could touch down or may be on the ground.

Another interesting fact. The tornado touched down on October 3, 1979 seven days later on October 10th it was snowing. Only in New England.