A Review of Twisters: The Movie and in Michiana

The original Twister is a classic and got a lot of people introduced to meteorology and storm chasing, and I believe Twisters is a very good follow up to it. Slightly connected to the first movie, the sequel carves out its own universe, and is definitely in tune with the chasing of today.

I have been seeing a lot of behind the scenes features that show the cast talking to storm chasers, as well as people at NWS and NOAA. A lot of the basic science of storms is explained pretty well in the movie with most of the ingredients that we believe make a tornado happen each having a spotlight, Shear, Lift, Instability, and Moisture.

I would say there are some intense weather scenes, three that had me gripping my seat, so if you do have any fear of strong storms or a recent storm trauma, these could be more frightening. Overall, though, I had a great time, the main characters have great chemistry, and I walked out of the theater irked about only a couple of things.

I give it four out of five stars, I enjoyed it, I’d love to watch it again, and I’ll probably pick up a DVD copy in two years.

Michiana has seen four tornadoes this year, two happening in early May and two happening last week, only one has been rated an EF2 or higher, and that would be the tornado that hit St. Joseph County MI. Thankfully we have only seen one injury from these tornadoes in Michiana and while the tornadoes were in our counties they were rated an EF0 or EF1.

The NWS office has put out 27 Tornado Warnings this year, but that is over their entire forecast area, which stretches into Ohio. We could still get some tornadoes this year, severe weather doesn’t have a season, make sure you have a warning system in place.