Forty years ago today, Hurricane Donna rocketed up the Eastern Seaboard, its center passing just 80 miles offshore of the Jersey and Delaware coasts. Winds were clocked at 58 mph at Atlantic City and gusted past tropical storm force in Philadelphia and Wilmington. But Donna's main affect on this area was 5 to 7 inches of rain.

Hereís a radar image of Hurricane Donna while it was over Florida. In 1960, weather radar was still a relatively new technology, and Donna was one of the first hurricanes studied up close with it. The spiraling shape of the hurricane is clearly evident - rainy areas are white, while the eye is the darker, circular region near the center of the storm.

Contrast this 40-year old radar image with a colorful, high resolution radar of a hurricane taken recently. It's pretty obvious that, as with many other aspects of meteorology, radar's come a long way since then.