Continuity mistake: When Bill and Jo are going through the house, the house is on its side horizontally. When they are crashing through the rooms though, the rooms are vertical. Also, in the same scene, you can clearly see them going up the stairs to the second floor. When they burst out, they are magically back down on the first floor. Right after that, the windshield is all cracked. A second later, it's perfectly fine. (01:34:20)
Visible crew/equipment: After Bill and Jo crash through the house, they plow into the cornfield chasing the twister. Dark shadows of the film truck behind them are quite visible as they close in on the roaring tornado. (01:36:27 - 01:37:15)
Revealing mistake: When Jo and Bill are running past the sunflowers, just after the barn has flown past them, the sunflowers aren't even swaying. Sunflowers would blow over at a tiny breeze, let alone an F5 tornado blowing around them. (01:36:45)
Factual error: Paxton and Hunt drive their truck toward the twister in a corn field, they jump out of the truck and then start running for it. Have you ever run in a corn field? You can't run in a corn field that has stalks that high, they would cut you to shreds. They would have been bleeding on the faces and hands and arms if they were wearing short sleeve shirts. If you enter a corn field, you must move with the rows - you cannot cross rows because the stalks are just like small trees and they are maybe six inches apart. (01:39:10)
Factual error: When they are at Aunt Meg's the first time, they get word that a tornado has been spotted and somehow they already know its rating. Tornadoes get their ratings from the amount of damage they do. This is determined after the tornado is gone.
Continuity mistake: When they're in the town with the drive-in movie, we see Melissa in her motel room crawling up onto the bed towards her pillow. You can see she has shoes on but no socks. We see her twirling her engagement ring around on her finger, then see her use the remote to turn the TV off. She watches the curtains blow for a minute and then she walks out of her motel room. She has on white socks. Then as she runs to grab Billy's hand, she has on black socks.
Suggested correction: They got dirty.
Continuity mistake: During the first tornado Helen Hunt has a big glob of dirt on her face, the shot cuts to the tornado, then back to Helen Hunt and the dirt (no smear marks either) is completely gone.
Continuity mistake: When Jo's crew is having their little steak snack at Aunt Meg's, we see Preacher watching TV. There's a good shot of the top of the television set and there are NO walkie-talkies on top. Yet when they hear about another tornado, they all jumped up and grab their walkie-talkies off the top of the TV.
Continuity mistake: When Bill and Jo are chased by the first tornado, a frontward shot shows them about 50 yards away from the wooden structure, while traveling at about 75 MPH according to the speedometer shot earlier. They continue driving for several seconds after this.
Plot hole: Throughout the entire movie, barns, houses, cars, 18-wheelers, etc. are demolished and lifted into the air like they were made of paper. And yet Jo and Bill pass through one tornado after another with nothing more than their hair getting messed up a little. You'd think the debris alone flying into their faces at 100 miles an hour would be enough to give them a few injuries.
Continuity mistake: After Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt chase the first tornado they switch to Bill's new truck. They look at the speedometer once then they look at again about 3 seconds later and the odometer is hundreds of miles different than it was only 3 seconds before. Furthermore, the truck has gained a quarter gas tank in a blink and has the airbag warning light turned on.
Other mistake: Although the film is set in Oklahoma (and north of Oklahoma City), the roads are marked by Texas road signs.
Other mistake: After the last tornado that passes directly over them, of F5 intensity, immediately afterwards, Helen Hunt still has her lightweight headphones casually draped around her neck. A stiff breeze could have blown them off, but not an F5 tornado?
Revealing mistake: While driving the red truck through the rolling house, Dorothy is mounted on the back of the truck. There are some very sensitive and fragile instruments located on the top sides of Dorothy that stick up above the cab of the truck. These would certainly have been torn off while crashing through the walls of the house, turning Dorothy into a useless pile of junk.
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the movie, the first time we see Jo's and her parents' house, there are several fairly close-up shots showing the porch and yard. These scenes are clearer during the flashes of lightning. There is nothing in the yard, close to the right side of the porch (as we are looking at it) except tall grass and a few small bushes right next to the porch. When the family comes out of the house to go to the cellar, there is a good-sized, red toy tractor sitting in the yard now.
Visible crew/equipment: When they are trapped in the garage and the tornado is whipping through, if you look real close when the debris is falling on them you can see (very quickly) a crew member throwing trash in the background.
Visible crew/equipment: As Jo and Bill take off from Meg's, the boom mike is briefly reflected in the glass.
Visible crew/equipment: When Melissa is meeting the chase crew, she answers her phone. As she does, the film crew and equipment is reflected in her shades.
Revealing mistake: They wouldn't be able to walk or run nearly so easily when near a tornado. In ametuer video footage of real tornados, the people could only move quite slowly, and were walking on an angle of 30 degrees from upright.
Visible crew/equipment: When Jo shuts her door after setting up Dorothy III during the final monster tornado scene, the heads of three crew members are reflected in the silver window frame.
Suggested correction: The scale back then was based on the size of the tornado, it's only more recently it is based on damage. So during the time of the movie, the scale was being used correctly for size not damage.
The Fujita scale was introduced in 1971 and was in use during the 90's when this film came out. The Fujita scale measured the damage caused by a tornado to man-made structures after ground or aerial surveys, it was not a measurement of tornado size (an F5 tornado is a tornado that's rated on the Fujita scale). It is true the Fujita scale was replaced by the enhanced Fujita scale in 2007, but that was only to align the ratings to the damage better, it did not change rating tornadoes from size to destructive powers.
Bishop73