Corrected entry: In the beginning of the movie when they go down in to the cellar, Jo's mother lights a kerosene lantern with no prep work done to the lantern. This would be impossible because the mantles can only be used one time and then they have to be replaced. When you put a new mantle on, it has to be "ashed" or burnt before the lantern can actually be used. Then the lantern she was using had to have the kerosene pumped up or 'vaporized' in the chimney part of the lantern. Only then could Jo's mother put a match to the mantle to light the lantern.
Corrected entry: There was thunder being heard as the drive-in movie was playing. The owners may not have known that a tornado was coming, but they surely would have been made aware that there was going to be rain or otherwise bad weather and cancelled the movie. Drive-ins naturally are at the mercy of weather conditions.
Correction: The movement of the storms that day were unpredictable. The storm chaser crew on break next to the theatre had no idea of the impending storm either, and they had sophisticated weather equipment. As for cancelling because of rain, I have a distinct memory from my childhood watching a movie at a Drive-in while raining, we watched with the windows closed and the windscreen wipers on.
Correction: Not necessarily. I remember as a young teen, during a drive-in movie, it began raining. Then the rain turned into a torrential downpour, and we turned on the radio to see if there any weather bulletins. We were under a severe thunderstorm watch, but the movie continued as normal.
Correction: Thunder/lightning doesn't always mean severe thunderstorm. Sometimes it can just be static/heat lightning from hot temperatures/humidity. It's more common at night too so that might have been why the severe storm came out of left field to the chasers.
Corrected entry: If the base of the twister at the end of the movie is a mile wide, and while attached to the pipes they see the center of the tornado, and the wide view of the two of them hanging on to the pipes after the tornado passes show they are about twenty yards from the house, logic would follow that the house would be taken also, wouldn't it?
Correction: The tornado was in a dying phase by the time it reached the shed, and so it may have no longer been a mile wide at that point (tornadoes rarely stay the same width and the damage path can vary greatly). Plus over the credits you can see the damage path and that the tornado was missing the house by a reasonable margin.
Correction: Also because it was evident during these final moments that the twister was changing speed and direction. As stated, dying out. Which was why, after their belt flying moment, the storm dies away or suddenly disappears. And the house is still intact. Which also was why you saw spouts starting to form in areas, then touch ground for mere moments, and then disappear into the clouds again.
Corrected entry: When they are chasing the second tornado, Bill Paxton says something about the tornado being a sidewinder and brakes suddenly, allowing the "bad" corporate team to go past them. However, the six-car "bad" team takes almost thirty seconds to overtake them; indeed, you see the same cars pass Paxton's car two or three times.
Correction: You see the same vehicle pass several times because Jonah's team is a fleet (all identical vans).
Corrected entry: When Jo and Bill are running from and going towards the F5 tornado, there are buildings, semi-trucks, and other things being thrown around and sucked up. Living in Oklahoma and being near a tornado, buildings don't get thrown on the road without taking the trees and cars or trucks around them and a truck would certainly be taken with a Semi. Plus, when they are running from the F5 with all the corn, fences, farm equipment, etc. being sucked up and thrown, they would have been tossed around just as violently.
Correction: Not necessarily. Things to this effect have been posted all over the Twister mistakes. But if you have ever seen a tornado and the aftermath of one. They are really extremely unpredictable. They do very strange things. So while it may seem impossible that they could walk around while buildings are being blown about, it's not really. A tornado is not like a steady wind. There are gusts, updrafts, it's really variable. So a gust may come up and knock over a building, but the same gust never comes near the people walking.
Correction: We actually got caught in some updrafts as kids, while crossing the street to our house, as sirens went off. 'Sister' spouts were visible in the foreground, and the wind gusts blew some things around in our yard, like tree branches and debris. We thought we were going to get blown around too before we got to the front porch, but that didn't happen.
Corrected entry: At the end of the film Hunt's and Paxton's characters are lifted and held aloft by the F5 as they hung onto a ground fixture. Wouldn't a force strong enough to lift their body weights be strong enough to rip off their clothes and send them to Oz? Or at least their shoes? Yet after the tornado passes all clothing is present, nothing is missing or even torn.
Correction: We see the tornado die off a few seconds later so the force probably wasn't F5 thus they could possibly be left the way they were.
Corrected entry: In the scene at Aunt Meg's, when the group is discussing the Fujita scale of tornado intensity, they refer to an F5 as the top strength on the scale. The scale actually includes an F6 level; even though that speed has never been officially measured, tornado experts would know it exists.
Correction: Nowhere in the scene does any member of the team state that an F5 is the top strength of a tornado. They refer to it as "The Finger of God", but that is in response to Bill's girlfriend's question, inquiring if there was such thing as an F5. True, they do not discuss the F6, but Bill's girlfriend did not ask about an F6, and why bother confusing her anymore?
Corrected entry: As the two main characters are in the twister near the beginning or middle, and under that small bridge, the twister moves away. Debris falls from the sky, and their truck falls just in front of that guy's new girlfriend. She screams and panics. Then all of the other guys run to see if SHE is OK. Why was everyone more concerned about someone's NEAR injury, as opposed to the two who may very well have died in a tornado?
Correction: The two main characters of which you speak were storm chasers; people who knew the risks involved, and were prepared for what came their way. Bill's girlfriend in the movie was, in a sense, an innocent. She did not fully know the power of a tornado, and was dragged on the chase. That is why more concern was expressed for her well being.
Corrected entry: The first time they try to get the F5 to suck up Dorothy, they watch it roll across the middle of the road. When the tornado winds move it around the pavement, you can see wheels underneath Dorothy, causing it to roll.
Correction: The Dorothy containers were designed with wheels on them.
Corrected entry: Why is it so important that Dorothy had to be standing up when the tornado passed over it? Either way those little things would have been sucked away.
Correction: It's important that Dorothy be in an upright position because of the "suck zone". The little balls inside would be blown away by the tornado instead of sucked up inside as they needed to be.
Corrected entry: In the beginning of the movie, Hunt's adult father is sucked into the F5, but her TINY dog is safe just a few feet away.
Correction: He was holding on so tightly to the door handle that he was taken away with the door. If he'd let go, he'd have dropped into the shelter and survived.
Corrected entry: When Jo and her family hear about the twister, they head outside to a cellar. How did the dog also manage to get outside with the door being closed?
Correction: Only the screen door closes behind the family, and it doesn't appear to close all the way; it just bangs against the door frame. So even though the dog is small, he shouldn't have had any trouble pushing his way out.
Corrected entry: Hunt and Paxton are shown running through the corn - wouldn't they have run back in the same direction as they drove their truck when they headed toward the twister? That would have been the easiest path and away from the twister.
Correction: Turning around and running 180 degrees away from a tornado is a dumb idea because some tornadoes can move at speeds of up to 70 mph. Moving at a 90 degree angles away from a twister is the best way to escape effectively.
Corrected entry: Near the end, they tie themselves to the water pipe with leather straps and are lifted upside down by the twister. An F5 tornado would have torn them to pieces no matter what they were tied with, and would have easily broken the leather straps as if they were candyfloss.
Correction: Just as an earlier entry said, tornadoes are strange things. They sometimes demolish the largest of objects and leave small measly objects alone. This is just another incident where the movie shows how tornadoes are strange things. Jo and Bill were lucky.
Not only that, but as also stated earlier, the tornado was in a weakening phase at that point and very likely wasn't as strong as it was earlier.
Corrected entry: When Bill and Jo are chasing their first tornado in the movie, we see the tornado dismantle a barn into several pieces. Later, it goes through the bridge Bill and Jo are grabbing onto. It dismantled a well constructed barn, but barely pushed the truck into an old and rickety bridge?
Correction: The tornado doesn't only push the truck into the bridge, it also picks it up and throws it.
Corrected entry: During the first tornado, Bill and Jo hide under a bridge. Any storm chaser will tell you that is one of the worst places to hide.
Correction: At the time the movie came out ( 1996 ) hiding under bridges and overpasses was still a generally accepted idea. In fact, The National Weather Service recommended using that option if no other shelter was available. It wasn't until 1999 that this practice was deemed unsafe.
Corrected entry: In the "sisters" scene, when they catch the red truck and spin it, why doesn't the truck either fall off the road, wobble around violently, or at least end up in a different position than still lined up down the road? In a real twister and in footage I have seen, even a strong crosswind would not be nearly as kind to a vehicle placed in its path, let alone 2 tornadoes at once!
Correction: Anyone living in the MidWest knows that tornadoes are notorious for doing strange things. Demolish entire houses but leave a single closet or entrance to the basement standing unharmed. Skipping one house with no damage to totally demolish another. I think a lot of these gaffes that have been reported on this site are actually the filmmakers trying to point out the unpredictability of tornadoes.
Correction: I live in the upper midwest (MI to be exact) and I have seen eyewitness reports or photos of aftermath storm damage, where a twister ripped through one side of a home, leaving the other side still intact (walls, photos, furniture unharmed) and even a lone standing bathroom shower stall or tub in place, while the rest of the bathroom walls etc lay in shreds and busted concrete. As stated several times in these corrections. Twisters are the most unpredictable storms because they can shift at any time.
Corrected entry: The beginning of the film is set in 1969, and the TV shows a "Tornado Warning." Until 1974, the National Weather Service issued Tornado Alerts, not Tornado Warnings. Warnings came into effect once the Doppler Radar system came into use and could detect rotation.
Correction: "Tornado Warnings" began in 1948 (there's a rich history of banning the term and its use through the subsequent years). However, there's nothing to suggest the warning came from the National Weather Service. In fact, if it did come from the NWS, that would be a mistake since the United States Weather Bureau didn't change their name to the National Weather Service until 1970.
Corrected entry: When they all go to Meg's to eat, the gravy is set down in front of Melissa and Dusty. Dusty picks up the bowl, tells her to she has to have it, and spoons gravy on to her potatoes - but you can see that she already has gravy on her potatoes.
Correction: When you see the shot of gravy going on her potatoes, Dusty had already scooped some on to her plate before that.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Bill, Jo and Melissa are in the Dodge Ram, it shows a shot of the tornado in the lake. For a brief moment before the shot changes, you can see another tornado in the right side of the screen. Seconds later, we see the tornado split into two, and Bill finally mentions "We've got sisters." Isn't it amazing that the tornado on the right goes completely unnoticed? (00:41:35)
Correction: They keep glancing at the one on the right - it is noticed, they just focus on the ones closer to them.
Correction: Or maybe it's an oil lamp, which you just light with a match whenever you want.