Short Wave - Science Movie Club: 'Twister'

Episode Date: April 8, 2020

No, tornadoes do not sound like a roaring lion. The 1996 drama 'Twister' got a lot of things wrong...and a few things right. Meteorologist Ali Burgos, an analyst at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, breaks down the science in the film. Email the show at [e-mail]. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Maddie Safaya here, if you're like me, maybe you're spending a lot of time lately reading the news, scrolling through Twitter, maybe too much time, which probably means you need a little break. So, we're trying something new here, a shortwave movie club where we talk about a movie and the science in them with someone who has a lot to say about both. And personal host promise, we will not be doing contagion. Okay, here's the show. You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Ali Bergo still remembers the first time she saw it. I mean, we all do. I was about in fourth grade.

It was maybe around midnight. Probably not that late because my parents probably wouldn't let me stay up that late. But curtains drawn, I was knitting, and I happened to come across. I was knitting. Yeah. And I happened to come across this movie on TV is just flipping channels, you know. And I saw a tornado. So I started watching it, and I was just mesmerized.

I remember my dad coming down and, like, yelling at me to go to bed. And I was like, just wait one more minute. Like, I need to keep watching this. Which she did. And she saw the defining weather film of 1996, a movie I love to hate, Twister, starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. In the movie, they chased down tornadoes, trying to find a way to study them up close and personal, and eventually they end up finding each other.

Like, it is such a good kind of bad movie? Yeah, absolutely. Like, it's one of those things that you just watch and you're like, oh, it's so good, but so bad at the same time. So today, our first shortwave movie club, we're talking one of my personal favorites, Twister with Ali Burgos, meteorologist and analyst for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I'm Maddie Safaya, and this is Shortwave. The Daily Science Podcast from NPR. All right, here's the plan.

I'm going to talk about some scenes in the movie, and Allie's going to tell us about the science. Here we go. In pretty much any scene with a tornado, it makes this sound. It's so ridiculous because tornadoes don't sound like a roaring lion for one. I'm pretty darn sure. I think when I was reading a little bit about the movie, they really wanted to make the tornado seem like, you know,

a person or like this thing with, like, character and soul. And generally, tornadoes actually sound more like this constant low rumble sound, or more like a rushing train. All right, all right. Next up, something they got kind of right.

The whole movie, the scientists are trying to get this instrument called Dorothy into the path of a tornado. We put her up inside a tornado so that it'll get sucked up and send out readings from the inside. And radio back information about the internal structure, wind velocities,

low asymmetries. We can learn more in 30 seconds than have in the past 30 years. It's got a profile of a tornado for the first time. And the cool thing is, is that these instruments are real. Scientists actually tried a version of this in the 80s. Right, yeah. So they modeled Dorothy after a real instrument called Toto, from Wizard of Oz, you know, the little dog Toto. That's why they named it. And so the basic idea was to put that in the path of a tornado,

and it could measure temperature and pressure and winds because what they really needed was to be able to get measurements real time. So they only had things from radar and from Doppler. So that's all from far away measuring all of those things. And they tried it a couple of times, and it's really dangerous as the movie shows of trying to put something into a tornado's path.

But now they actually have a new program that Noah is starting to fund called Taurus, and this is taking really small weather balloons and putting instruments on that and flying them up into a tornado. So the balloon kind of takes that instrument package with it versus having to put a big clunky metal thing right in the path. Right. So we've come a long way from like dropping something off a pickup truck

and hoping that it gets put into the center of the tornado. So cool. So the instrumentation while it wasn't like trying to measure exactly the same things was actually based off of a real experiment. Yeah, the exact concept behind it was the same. So the last big scene of the movie is perhaps, and this is saying a lot, the most... It's the best scene of the movie, let's be honest. It's the best scene. So the main characters are trying to get as close to an F5 tornado, great idea, as they possibly can.

And they deliver this device into the tornado and they kind of like get stuck on this farm, right? They're trying to run away from the tornado at the same time. Good point. Which you couldn't do in real life. Okay, okay, this is good, because this is something I wanted to ask you about. but they basically find their way into this tiny shed. Bill Paxson is like, it's fine, we're going to tether ourselves to this pipe that goes really deep in the ground. These pipes go down at least 30 feet.

We have your two leather straps. F-F-Fail! And then an F-5 tornado rolls over the shed, rips. Perfectly over the shed, mind you. Rips the shed out of the ground. They're, like, being pulled up into the center of the tornado. Hang on! One, it is the most fun scene of the movie.

You feel like you're inside of that tornado with them. You see lightning bolts going on. There are multiple mini tornadoes within the big tornado. Then the tornado passes, and they're totally fine. Perfectly fine. Yes. The biggest issue with that scene is that if you did have supposedly an EF5 tornado, which you wouldn't be able to tell just looking at it,

is that all of the debris flying on around them, would most likely kill them. An EF5 tornado has winds upwards of 300 miles an hour. Wow. So even if you have a small, you know, a small screwdriver, for example, if that's flying at that speed and hits you, you're gone. Yeah. And if you saw in that scene there is a shed and it's like full of like farming equipment,

like saws and axes, they would probably get hit by something like that. But it certainly makes it a fun scene. So tell me when you were saying you can't tell just by looking at it. Because they're like, this is an F. Five. Right. Yeah. So you can't actually determine the scale or the intensity of a tornado just by looking at it. What scientists have to do is do a damage survey afterwards and see all of the damage that the tornado caused. And then from that, they can determine the intensity. The F4 that hit Wauquita has now moved on to the northeast. I've just gotten word in that an even stronger tornado has now started to form 25 miles south of Warnita. So at no point can you like predict that a tornado is going to be at F5 before it happens?

Correct, exactly. You would have to do the damage report. And you say, okay, based on this, this and this. Right. And they were just going by, you know, bigger tornado means stronger, more violent. And that's not always the case. You can actually have tornadoes that look pretty small, but that are very, very violent. Okay.

All right. So we have hated on Twister a little bit by now. But I feel like a lot of times in science movies, the science. to seem like pretty buttoned up, like definitely predominantly male, which they still are in this movie. But, you know, the lead researcher in this movie is a woman. She's got a personal stake in her science. She's really passionate about helping people. And that like kind of stuck with me for sure. Yeah. I think that stuck with a lot of people. And I think a lot of people also don't realize that there are tons and tons of researchers out in the field. And so it's really cool just

seeing people like down and getting their hands dirty and really putting their kind of like heart and soul, especially into something that is so important to help people. And you told me that this movie played a big role in your life too. Oh, definitely. I was one of those weird kids that watched the Weather Channel every morning, waking up from school. That's a normal type of kid. Yeah. And so Twister definitely kind of showed me that there's another side of science besides just being a TV broadcaster.

Like you can go out and research these things and going in. to college to study meteorology, my parents actually bought me that movie as a parting gift on DVD. So, like, it's fair to say that this movie inspired you in some way to go into your field. Oh, definitely. And I think it inspired a lot of people, too. I know all of my meteorology friends speak very fondly of this movie when they were kids. Thanks to Ali Burgos, meteorologist and analyst for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. If there's a movie or a TV show that you've seen lately that features some interesting science to talk about, email us at shortwave at npr.org.

This episode was produced by Rebecca Ramirez and Brett Bachman and edited by Viet Le. Emily Vaughn checked the facts. The real facts, not the twister facts. I'm Maddie Safaya, back tomorrow with more shortwave from NPR.