Twister (1996), A Warner brother movie directed by Jan de Bont and starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton, is an adventure movie with an amateur’s view on tornado chasing. Twister was actually the first DVD to ever be released. Bill and Jo are just about to finalize their divorce papers until the largest storm to hit Oklahoma in more than half a century starts to brew and it promises to drop multiple twisters on Tornado Alley. It's the storm that Bill and Jo, both being storm chasers, and a rival group have been waiting for to earn their place in meteorological history.

As a monstrous oncoming tornado approaches stars Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton whilst standing in an Oklahoman cornfield, all they can say is “My God” Coincidentally that is all I can say after re-watching the movie that actually inspired me to become a meteorologist. The special effects that created the tornadoes are great, and better than I remembered them being. Hollywood has never been good at scientifically or historically accurate movies. Twister is just about as accurate as Jurassic park, which features dinosaurs from the Triassic period. Having a PhD in meteorology, and I’m sure my colleagues will agree, it’s very hard not to nitpick all of the false facts portrayed in the movie.

Let’s start from the beginning. It starts off in June 1969, and Jo's father mentions that the oncoming tornado might be an F5. It’s true that the Fujita- Pearson Tornado Intensity Scale is used to rate the power of the tornadoes, from F0 (weak with very light damage) to F5 (Violent with incredible damage), but the scale wasn’t created until 1971. The intensity rating can only be determined until after the damage has been looked at. For example, only after meteorologists examined damage from the Hesston, Kansas, tornado of 1990, and the Andover tornado of 1991, they were rated at F5 intensity. Being a meteorologist and beginner storm chaser, I’d just like to tell you that Chasers don’t check radar and scream “Whooeeeeeee! We’ve got ourselves an F3” Or anything along the lines of that, as the movie implies.

In the movie, storm predictions are being fed from the National Severe Storms Lab in Oklahoma, when it’s actually here, in the Storm Prediction Center in Kansas City where tornadoes are predicted, whilst the lab does basic research. A lot of the news reports in the movie are actual clips of weathermen from Oklahoma news stations, including Gary England, chief meteorologist at KWTV in Oklahoma City, and Rick Mitchell, chief meteorologist at KOCO in Oklahoma City, both of them being my heroes. The "1969" footage of Gary England giving the tornado warning to Jo's family is real footage of him giving a tornado warning. Gary England didn’t actually join the KWTV until 1972. The movie totally ignored the role of tornado spotters, as one town is hit without any warning.

As for capturing tornado chasing, or even the physics of real tornadoes, my friend Fred Ostby, chief forecaster for the Storm Prediction Center, said “I thought ‘E.T.’ was more believable.” As most high school students would know, during a real twister, air and debris whooshes in toward the tornado. Obviously the director doesn’t know this, as there are trucks, cows and houses flying in all directions. At least, the stars’ hair should have been blowing forward, not back. On the subject of comparing the directors physic skills with those of a high schooler, then I’d like to add that where the thunder and lightning is concerned, Steven Spielberg (Producer of the film), the big guy himself, should’ve checked his physics books before the movie. They don’t flash and crash at the same time, unless a storm is directly overhead, lightning is seen before thunder is heard, as light travels faster than sound.

The storms that the tornadoes are coming from do not look very realistic. They lack the typical super cell structure as well as wall cloud that a tornado would be coming from.