Visible crew/equipment: When Melissa dodges the truck that has fallen from sky and Dusty rushes to open a door and help Melissa get out of the truck, the reflection of a camera is seen in the bottom right corner of the truck window. As they move out and pan to the right, you can see a reflection of the same camera and cameraman at the bottom right corner of the truck door as they move away. (00:33:50)
Continuity mistake: When the cow blows by the truck, the truck is driving down an empty dirt road with water on both sides. During the shots of the occupants, the road behind the truck is paved and dry. Also in one of these rear shots a truck (Red Chevrolet Blazer) drives by in the opposite direction. (00:42:25)
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: During the big falling debris scene, Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt are in the red truck. The truck hits a combine auger. The impact damages the windshield, and it is broken, but a second later the windshield is perfect and untouched. (01:34:00)
Factual error: In the begining when Jo's dad is bringing the family downstairs and say's "TV says it's big, might be an F-5" That scene was set in 1969. In reality he would not have known anything about an F-5 or any tornado with an F rating because the Fujita scale was not developed until 1971. (00:02:45)
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.
They wouldn't have gotten so dirty that they would be black. At the most, they would have turned a light brown colour.
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 the telephone pole falls on the truck, you see Dorothy get thrown off the bed and the tailgate gets broken off along with it. A couple of scenes later, the tailgate is back and hanging there like it was untouched, and the pole is no longer there. (00:59:00)
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: In the scene where Bill is trying to catch up with Jonas, right after Bill stops the truck, we see a long shot of Jonas's storm chasing crew passing Bill's truck, a side road can be seen on the right side of the road. But when Bill puts the truck in reverse and turns onto the side road it's now on the left side (there never was a side road visible on the left side in the long shot). (00:38:35)
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.
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)
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?
Visible crew/equipment: Near the beginning of the movie when Bill and Mellisa are on their way to get the divorce papers signed, you can see the reflection on the passenger side window of the helicopter and the cameraman. A few shots later when the camera angle is in front of the Dodge, you can see a brief reflection of the brake lights from the camera truck in the rear window of the Dodge. (00:07:50)
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.
Continuity mistake: When the good group is chasing the tornado, the bad group is following them (watching for skid marks on turns, etc.) anyway, the bad guys see skid marks at a turn about 10ft in front of them. They would have to turn immediately and they would still barely make the turn. The camera goes off the road and shows the driver's "what do I do?" expression for about 3 seconds, then the camera goes back on the road and the turn is the same distance away. In reality they would have passed the turn and been about 20 ft past it by then. (00:31:10)
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