Continuity mistake: When Jack and the other bloke are standing and ask where the library is, they take off their skis and sled, and run a few metres and look over a sand dune. The camera zooms out a fair bit, but the sled has disappeared. (01:43:05)
Factual error: When the International Space Station gets a call from Houston asking them to confirm the storm is dissipating the station is over Europe moving on a westbound trajectory. The International Space Station moves on an eastward trajectory, not westward. (01:45:35)
Other mistake: Near the end of the movie, in New York, once the storm has cleared, ships seem to be pointing out of the ice at all angles. For a while before the water froze over, the ships would've had enough time to either level out or sink if they had been ruptured in some way. Also, there is no way they could be touching the floor of the harbour, seeing as how the water not only rose, but it was already deep enough for ships to pass without difficulty. (01:46:40)
Character mistake: When Jack arrives in New York he's right next to the Statue of Liberty. However when he reaches the library he comes from the East River and walks west. That is a pretty big detour around the southeastern corner of Manhattan, instead of taking the direct route. (01:47:00 - 01:48:20)
Suggested correction: Easier to walk in an open area and have a short distance walking between buildings rather than walking through the city where the terrain may not be the best even with the snow/ice.
Visible crew/equipment: When Jack is in the library towards the end of the movie, he looks in a room and then the shot goes back to facing him. If you look very carefully, in the back of the hall you can see a person walk by. He is very hard to see. (01:49:05)
Suggested correction: You never see anyone walk by. It's only him and his friend Jason. It's also very dark in the hallways so may have been a shadow.
Continuity mistake: At the end of the movie, when they are all in the helicopter, it cuts to a view of them looking out the window. In this shot, the black actor is sitting next to the window, on the other side of the helicopter, but in the following one, he has suddenly switched seats, and is no longer sitting next to the window. (01:49:40)
Other mistake: At the end of the film when they arrive in NYC looking for the library, we know that they survived because they are inside with a roaring fire burning. But where is the smoke up above, as Jack Hall approaches? There must be a chimney, or else they would have all died of asphyxiation.
Suggested correction: As already corrected, just because we can't see an outlet for the smoke doesn't mean there isn't one. White smoke against white snow is very hard to see.
But they were still burning the books, which meant the smoke should be black, if they stop burning the books, the smoke would have been white, which isn't the case in the movie.
Just looked at a boatload of videos of burning books, including one in a fireplace, and the smoke was indeed white.
Factual error: When Sam climbs outside the ship he grabs the frozen metallic pipes and rails with both hands - one half covered with a glove, one is bare. He has no problem gripping the cold metal and he can get his hands free every time. If the moisture froze before contact, his hands would be frozen too, so that can't be the reason.
Other mistake: None of the men in the movie grow any facial hair at all, even the ones stuck in the library in New York.
Suggested correction: The storm only lasts a few days to a week at most, which isn't too much time for a guy to grow facial hair.
Factual error: The aircraft flying to rescue the British Royal Family are described as belonging to "an RAF search and rescue squadron." However the middle aircraft has white and green striped camouflage painted on it, which is a pattern only used by aircraft in 845 Naval Air Squadron (a Royal Navy unit).
Factual error: At the start, Jack jumps the break in the ice to go and pick up some ice core tubes. He lifts them way too easily, considering they are supposed to have ice cores in them.
Revealing mistake: Very near the end of the movie, when the NOAA director is viewed in the helicopter as it approaches NYC, the image is reversed, verified by the David Clark logo on his headset being reversed. There are two different shots of this just a few seconds apart, and they are both reversed.
Continuity mistake: When Sam and his two teammates are on their way to NYC for the competition, the airplane gets hit by turbulence. Two attendants go to the back of the aisle with the drink cart, when the plane starts to shake, and in the long shot of the aisle (from the head to the back) one of them is in front of the cart and the other one is behind. However, both are behind the cart in the close up, when they try to prevent the cart from hitting anybody.
Continuity mistake: When Jack is trekking north to Manhattan with two of his colleagues, one falls through a glass ceiling and the other cuts his right hand trying to save him. Despite the fact that we see his hand bleeding profusely, you can see in the subsequent scene that his right hand is just fine.
Factual error: NOAA headquarters is shown to be in downtown D.C, when in fact it is just outside of the District in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Factual error: Air descending cannot cause temperatures to reach a point where things freeze as fast as they do in the film. Firstly, the temperature of the upper troposphere is only -60° Fahrenheit. Secondly, air will warm as it descends no matter how fast it's descending, and the warming process will always prevent the air from getting cold enough to freeze things as fast as in in the movie.
Factual error: In the scene where the three scientists are walking on top of the mall and the older scientist falls through the glass, the rope becomes taut against the edge of the glass, stopping his forward motion, but he doesn't swing. The other two look through the glass and he's perfectly still, but he should be swinging, especially with the sled hanging down below him which would add even more movement.
Factual error: When the North Atlantic current is shown on a world map, there are a couple of errors on it. 1) South East Asia is missing, and 2) Arabia is joined to Africa.
Factual error: The penicillin should have been frozen since it was in liquid form. And it's never in liquid form in a vial. It's mixed with a powder and it's a milky white color, not clear.
Factual error: There is a scene where a helicopter's tail rotor freezes up, causing the copter to spin out of control and crash. The problem with this scene is that the helicopter starts to spin clockwise, in the SAME direction as the main rotor blades. In actuality, engine torque would cause a conventional tail-rotor helicopter to spin in the OPPOSITE direction of the rotor blades, in the event of a tail rotor failure.
