Ian Heit

As a weather nut, I can say this movie is really fun. Not quite enough to warrant 5 stars, but there was a lot of good terminology, and the advice to NEVER go under an underpass during a storm is the best advice you can give. Some of the moments were pretty unrealistic, the movie sort of overblows the wind field of some tornadoes and underblows the strength of others. I don't want to spoil the movie, but I will say real tornadoes have a surprisingly small windfield strong enough to do major damage. That's not to say you're ever safe being that close to a tornado because these storms can change direction without notice. It was fun to watch though, and I think it does exactly what it sets out to do. It's not MADE to be a perfect storm chasing movie, it's a disaster movie with a fiction-esque plot, and I have to remind myself it doesnt HAVE to be realistic, after all the first one wasn't all that realistic. Overall I really enjoyed the movie and I would definitely watch it again. For all you storm nuts that read this, don't go in expecting a perfect storm chase movie, go in expecting a fun fictional story that pays tribute to our understanding of weather. Thanks all! There are some details that I just LOVED and below is spoilers so read at your own risk: -The radar application they are using on many of the NWS systems is called Gibson Ridge Analyst 2, which is a radar analysis software developed by AllisonHouse, I use that software to track storms, and it was cool seeing that in the movie. -They explained our current understanding of tornados pretty well, that we know the formula for updrafts and can generally predict where they MAY happen, but the specific kinematics that lead to tornadogenesis are still a bit of a mystery. -The callback to the 2013 El Reno tornado made me come out of my seat. I was like "NO THEY DIDNT!" -The CGI for some of the tornados was INCREDIBLE, they did a very good job, most tornado movies have very unrealistic looking tornados, but the graphic designers for this film did their research and nailed the structure and complexity of both the funnel, meso, and updraft. I was very impressed by the accuracy. -The joke about "All these guys with a $10 radar app made me laugh because that's gotta be about either RadarScope or RadarOmega -Seeing REAL storm chasers as extras in the movie! That's so cool! You have to really keep an eye out for them. Some of the things that I DIDNT Like: -The CGI For the LAST tornado of the film was a bit rediculous, but again I have to remind myself they weren't shooting for realism at that point. -The WHOLE CONCEPT of shutting down a tornado like that is REDICULOUS and even if you could, the collapsing updraft would become a very powerful and destructive downburst, which could do a LOT of damage. All of that convective mass losing it's lift would make gravity do it's thing, and since a lot of it had already condensed, it would not be a fun time. But it was a fun gimmick and hand it to the scriptwriters that it did forward the plot a bit. -The fact that a truck with augers managed to withstand the windfield better than a movie theater half a mile away from the tornado is REDICULOUS! -Large tornados like the last one usually have multiple vorticies inside of the condensation funnel, essentially a lot of smaller tornados inside the low-pressure wind field of the overarching tornado. That's how the 2013 El Reno tornado was.