SCPL Online NonFiction Book Club discussion

Who here has seen the blockbuster movie Twister?

I know you can't see it, but my hand is waaaaaay up.

Anytime I come across this movie being shown on TV I just HAVE to watch it. I've lost count of how many times I've seen it! Now that I've read Brantley Hargrove's book, though, I've come to realize just how much of that movie is actually complete bunk.

Even though there are some absolutely ridiculous scenes in that movie that would never ever ever ever happen, storm chasers do acknowledge that this movie brought an entirely new public perspective and appreciation to their line of work, thereby making grants and funding a little more accessible.

Just for fun, however, I would like to name a few ways in which Twister went wrong!

- At the beginning of the movie, when Jo's dad says "C'mon, let's go, the TV said it could be an F5." The problem is that this is set in June 1969 - the Fujita Scale wasn't developed until 1971.

- The television set in the first scene showed Gary England warning residents with weather radar that a tornado was on its way. The first time weather radar was used on television during a tornado outbreak wasn't until 1973 - four years later.

- Tornadoes are not known to roar like a lion (though the show Storm Chasers does like to add their own sound effects to make the public think so!)

- Bill and Jo take cover under a bridge during the first tornado. This is never a good idea as bridges offer you no protection from a tornado.

- In the same way, when the tornado hit the drive-in movie theatre, everyone ran to take shelter in the big garage. Big, open rooms like hangars or gymnasiums are terrible protection from storms because they're not structurally sound enough to handle the wind and debris.

- In the final scene of the movie, when Bill and Jo strap themselves to a pipe and then experience a lovely floating sensation as the twister swirls around them, it's rather evident that this would never happen. The debris alone (like from the barn full of sharp objects that the twister just ploughed through), would probably do them in and if not that, the sand flying around at 400-500 km/h would likely reduce them to dust (sorry to be so graphic!!)

On the other hand, there are some things that the movie did get right:

- DOROTHY, the metal canisters with little sensors inside meant to go up in the tornado to measure its behaviour, was based on the real-life TOTO project conducted by the National Severe Storms Laboratory back in the 1980s. (They never got it to work.)

- Much of the technical talk ("the cap is breaking," "the wind shear is veering") is actually correct, which is rare for a weather movie.

-When the final, huge tornado suddenly shifted its track and killed the storm chasers in the van, it was a very similar scenario to what happened during the El Reno, Oklahoma tornado in 2013. This is the tornado that killed Tim Samaris as well as his son and colleague. It's interesting to note that this scenario was produced almost 14 years before the actual tragedy took place.

Final thought of this post: hearing wind chimes before a storm still really creeps me out. Anyone else with me on that?

~Marcella

I have seen Twister. I owned the VHS for a number of years. :) I did think some of it was a bit far-fetched..but it was one of my favourite movies. Did you know, an actual tornado ripped though a drive-in theatre in Thorold while twister was playing. I wasn't there but it is not an urban legend, it actually happened. Weird or what? Twister definitely made me more interested in storms but it was something I already loved. Has anyone ever seen the movie "Night of the Twisters?" it was about an actual tornado outbreak in the US. I really liked it in 1996 when it first came out. Not sure if I would now lol

Hi Julie,

Wow - I did NOT know that story about the Thorold Drive in - that's totally wild! I discovered that a documentary was made about the whole episode too - and was presented at TIFF! (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7798194/)

I've never heard of Night of the Twisters - so I had to look it up! It looks like a SciFi Thriller - perhaps piggybacking on Twister's success? I think that now that I have a family I'd have a harder time watching it than when I was a teenager!!

~Marcella

I did not know about the documentary! I will definitely look that up.