Initially commissioned at the Miami Hurricane Forecast Center, the WSR-57 was installed in other parts of the Contiguous United States (CONUS).

[3] The WSR-57 was designed in 1957 by Dewey Soltow using World War II technology, using modified versions of those used by United States Navy aircraft.

Forecasters had to manually turn a crank to adjust the radar's scan elevation, and needed considerable skill to judge the intensity of storms based on green blotches on the radar scope.

[1] The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has pictures of the Charleston, SC, WSR-57 radar image of the 1989 Hurricane Hugo.

[6] As the network of WSR-57 radars aged, some were replaced with WSR-74S models of similar performance but with better reliability.

Originally located at NSSL facility on the University of Oklahoma - Norman's North Research Campus near 35.23807,-97.46264 and later relocated to Woodward, OK in the 1989 as an off-network radar operated to support local emergency management and ARES services in an area of poor network radar coverage.

Moved to Memphis (MEM) Operations transferred to NOAA February 1, 1971 Replaced by a WSR-74S.