Tornadoes
How realistic are Hollywood Disaster Movies?
Introduction
This article will focus on how realistic the tornadoes are in The Day After Tomorrow. The movie, The Day After Tomorrow is about the world surviving through a series of natural disasters. The disasters in the movie are: flooding /storm surge, tsunami, tornadoes and an ice age. The movie is full of unrealistic facts and information and in this article, I will explain how so. I will also say how it is realistic in ways.
How are tornadoes formed?
The day after tomorrow map
Tornado Alley:
Tornado Alley is where most tornadoes happen in America. Tornado Alley has most tornadoes because of the weather conditions and flat land.
California Fault:
The California Fault line is a line that is around 800 miles long. There are two tectonic plates that make the California fault line and they rub against each other to make the line. Here is where many earthquakes happen.
Legend:
Blue: Tornado Alley
Red: California Fault
Black: Direction Arrows
Tornado Alley Map
Comparison to real-life
Another comparison to real-life is that there is no cool wind coming from any cool places. In the wind map, the arrows show which direction the wind is blowing. The map show that the arrows are pointing upward from countries nearer the equator.
Wind map
Basic Map
Geography Map
Case Study : El Reno 2013 Tornado
The El Reno tornado was part of a larger storm called the "Tornado outbreak of May 26 to 31" which caused 115 tornadoes in Tornado Alley, but the largest one was the El Reno Tornado. This tornado has been named one of the worst because of the amount of destruction. It had grown to 2.6 miles wide.
Compared to the movie The Day After Tomorrow, The El Reno tornado was different in many ways. Here are three ways:
1. The El Reno tornado only killed eight people and was a huge tornado. In the movie, the tornado is estimated to be around 40 feet wide while the El Reno tornado was at the maximum 2.6 miles wide, yet manages to kill more than El Reno. Even as a triple tornado, the destruction was even more than the El Reno tornado.
2. In the movie, there was a helicopter flying next to a tornado. In real life, helicopters that fly near tornadoes are usually effected by an amount of turbulence which can cause it to crash.
3. People were videoing the tornado and standing nearby to look at it but in this extract, "By attempting to escape the storm by vehicle, in direct contrast to the recommended plan of action" it shows that in real life, people are desperate to run away.
4. According to google maps, the tornadoes traveled around 20 miles from the Hollywood sign to LAX. The El Reno tornado traveled 16.2 miles. Although the longest distance a tornado has ever traveled was 220 miles, it isn't common for a tornado to travel 20 miles.
Map
Shot from space
El Reno
Conclusion
In conclusion, the movie the day after tomorrow is an unrealistic movie because of the incorrect scientific facts about natural disasters. Too many things are unrealistic and the director of the day after tomorrow should have done more i depth research to get a better, realistic movie. My overall judgement is that if you like extreme natural disaster movies with lots of unrealistic facts then this movie is better off with you. On the other hand, if you're a climate professor or something like that, this movie isn't for you. be quite hot in California and there isn’t much cool air. The setting in the extract of The day after tomorrow is uncertain because of the amount of clouds in the extract.