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During the 1960s, forecasts for south Mississippi continued to be made from the forecast office in New Orleans, while
forecasts
for north Mississippi were made in Memphis, Tennessee. The WBAS at Jackson continued to do observations from Hawkins, while
the WBO at Thompson Field did local adaptive forecasts, and warnings. The terrible Candlestick Park tornado struck south
Jackson during this time, specifically on March 3, 1966.
Technology was continuing to advance, and with it, weather radars advanced too. In
1969, a 10 centimeter wavelength radar,
WSR-57 (named for the year in which it was built) was installed at the Jackson Weather Bureau
Office(WBO) at Thompson Field.
The old WSR-3 was de-commissioned, and the Hawkins office was discontinued. In July
1970, the name of the Weather Bureau
was changed to the National Weather Service, and the Jackson office became a Weather Service Office
(WSO). The deadly Delta
tornadoes killed 113 persons in three states, one of which was Mississippi on February 21,
1971.
On April 1, 1972, the office in Jackson was charged with forecasting for the entire state of Mississippi and the name was
changed
to the National Weather Service Forecast Office (WSFO). Mr. Robert Cole became MIC with this change, to be followed by
Mr.Cliff
Green in late 1973.
The office was moved to its own building between the runways at Thompson Field in
October of 1978, where it is today. In
April
,1979 the record Easter Flood on the Pearl River struck the city of Jackson after more than 20 inches of rain fell near
Louisville, in Winston County. During this historical storm, lightning struck the WSR-57 tower just
outside the office and
knocked
the radar out for several days. |
weather.gov 
