An extremely devastating and deadly tornado outbreak sequence impacted the Midwestern and Northeastern United States at the beginning of June 1953.

The Flint-Worcester Tornadoes were the most infamous storms produced by a larger outbreak of severe weather that began in Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin, before moving across the Great Lakes states, and then into New York and New England.

[4] On June 6, a surface low-pressure area formed over Northwestern New Mexico and eventually began to move northeastward into the Great Plains.

With shear values of 55 knots in the upper atmosphere, the environment became extremely ripe for the development of severe weather and tornadoes throughout the afternoon and evening.

This allowed for a line of large and violent tornadic supercells to form across Eastern Lower Michigan into Northwestern Ohio.

A shortwave trough had formed over the region in the upper atmosphere, conjuring up extremely strong wind shear values of 100 knots.

Numerous supercell thunderstorms formed along the cold front, spawning wind, hail, and tornadoes before weakening and moving offshore that evening.

Some got into vehicle crashes in the ensuing panic to flee while others inadvertently drove into the path of the tornado after leaving the theater.

[4] The storm system that created the Flint tornado moved eastward over southern Ontario and Lake Erie during the early morning hours of June 9.

As early as 10:00 a.m. EST, however, the Weather Bureau in Boston anticipated the likelihood of tornadic conditions that afternoon but feared the word "tornado" would strike panic in the public, and refrained from using it.

As the storm moved eastward at approximately 35 miles per hour (56 km/h), it hit the towns of Rutland and Holden, where 11 people were killed in total.

[16] The tornado, which had grown to one mile (1.6 km) in width, destroyed several structures in Northern Worcester, including parts of Assumption College.

Transmission towers were snapped in half, cutting off power to thousands of people in Shrewsbury and the surrounding towns.

The funnel maintained its one-mile (1.6 km) width as it passed throughout much of Shrewsbury, and still dealt a high degree of damage when it moved through downtown Westborough, where it began curving towards the northeast in its final leg.