Technical Inconsistencies
Author: crazymanmichael from Canada
11 December 2004
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
POSSIBLE SPOILERS WITHIN!
Prolog:
· It is implied, later in the film (during the dinner scene at auntie's) that this night-time tornado is F5 intensity. This is extremely unlikely. There's just not enough heat/lapse-rate (and consequent thermal instability) without sunshine. · The fluid dynamics of a guy getting sucked out of a storm cellar just don't work. It would require too much pressure differential in an enclosed space. Stick a small piece of paper in a pop bottle, then try to get the paper out of the pop bottle by blowing. Blow across the opening, into the opening, try anything. Trust me, it just won't work.
First tornado encountered
· Mammatus clouds, which they admire outside the gas station, generally indicate that a storm is waning, not at peak intensity as suggested here. · The tornado shown does not emerge from a wall cloud, and thus is probably a land-spout. Therefore it's unlikely to be F2 intensity as implied. · Storm chasers do not drive like idiots. They're very responsible and safety conscious. Even when deploying damage-path instruments like TOTO they do not deliberately get closer than ½ mile or so. · An F2 tornado cannot pick up a truck, just push it around some. · If it ropes out as shown, it's very unlikely (but not impossible,admittedly) that it could reconstitute, as it apparently did. · The tornado debris cloud varied way too much in size. In the final seconds it looked to be only a few meters in diameter. Not realistic. · Hiding under a bridge is a really stupid idea. Storm chasers would only do something like that if no other option was available.
Second tornado
· The second tornado appears to be coming out of a wall cloud (good for them!), but there's no such storm-chaser terminology as 'sidewinder'. · There's no way they could assess the Fujita ('F') number just by looking at the tornado. Dumb! No storm chaser would ever say something like that. · The tornado does not move realistically. Spawning of the second funnel is unrealistic. There's no way a second tornado could 'split' from the first as shown. The fluid dynamics of rotation would prevent it.
· Hunt says they're 'in the flanking line.' They could not be anywhere near the flanking line if they're 'under the core' (mesocyclone, I suppose that means). · The whole 'cow' scene, while amusing, is completely unrealistic. · They survive a direct hit from an 'F3' tornado and nothing happens? Don't make me laugh.
Dinner at Auntie's
· I don't even know where to start with the absurd banter in this scene. The whole 'Jack Daniels' anecdote is absolutely impossible. Not even close to possible.
Third tornado
· You can't guarantee touchdown just from Doppler radar. You can determine the existence of a vortex, but there's no way to say whether it's on the ground or in the air. · There's a good picture of wall cloud here! One good moment. · Where the hell is the debris in this scene coming from? They're too far from the tornado and not anywhere near the RFD. · The tornado moves too fast. Not realistic. · When it hits the power lines, what the hell explodes in a ball of fire??? · Cloud motion is not particularly realistic when the tornado lifts.
Fourth tornado
· Once again we have an unlikely level of intensity after dark. · What are these people, living mobile home parks? Every damn tornado in the state heads straight for them! · There is a bad misconception that the visible part of the tornado, i.e. the condensation funnel, is where the wind is. The actual area of strong rotation may be many times larger and strong inflow can extend even farther than that. The visible funnel is only where the air pressure is low enough that the air is at or below dew point. In dry air, tornadoes may not necessarily have a visible funnel at all, at least until it is filled with debris and dust. · 'Downdrafts and microbursts'??? What the hell is he talking about? They took a f***ing direct hit from a funnel. There were no 'downdrafts and microbursts'…
The propeller idea
· I'm not sure about this. It might actually be a good one. Mind you, I can't picture a scientist designing objects intended to be carried aloft by the wind that are spherical, which is the most aerodynamically efficient symmetrical shape. The logical design would be something with a high drag coefficient, not a low one (which a sphere would be), so that they would be carried more easily by the updraft. It wouldn't be necessary to make little propellers, though. Just anything that would increase drag.
Fifth tornado
· Sure is good of that tornado to hang around for hours until the storm chasers are ready! The longest-lived tornado on record lasted less than 75 minutes. Oh, and they casually drive by the thing on the way to their deployment point. They go from bright sunlight to within a mile of a huge wedge tornado, then back into sunlight, apparently far enough away from the tornado to prepare their instruments, then easily drive to within a few hundred feet of the thing. Yeah right.
· By the way, just because the sensors spill out onto the road, how come they're no good any more? Why do they have to be inside that barrel thing? They'd still get sucked up into the funnel even if they're scattered on the road… · How can they drive through the flaming wreckage of a tanker truck and not hit anything? · Quibble: Explosion of Jonas's truck looked really fake. · Continuity error: Part of combine harvester hits their truck on the passenger-side windshield. In the very next shot the windshield is intact. · There is no way the truck could drive through even a flimsy frame house and come out the other side undamaged. · Too many problems here to list. In almost all scenes, they're way too close to the tornado. They would be right in the inflow, and getting their asses kicked by it. · Getting caught in an F5 tornado unprotected: Probability of survival: very low.
Probability of surviving uninjured: just about zero. Wind speeds inside an F5 tornado are between 250 and 317 m.p.h. Getting hit by even a small piece of debris would be like getting shot with a gun. Even in the core of the tornado they look like they're getting buffeted by winds perhaps 40-50 m.p.h. Yeah, right. If either of them got hit by even a small rock traveling at 250+ miles per hour, they'd be dead as fried chicken. · Following the encounter, the tornado doesn't rope out, but dissipates in a matter of seconds. Pretty, unlikely. · In the final scene, it is apparent that the tornado passed within a few meters of the farmhouse, yet the house is undamaged. Possible, but very pretty unlikely.
