How did they make the tornado in the movie Twister? Was it real?
None of the tornadoes in Twister were real. All were generated by computer programs which create vortices and add random movement computer programs to every particle in the vortex. It is a mind-boggling use of state-of-the-art computer power. • How close to chasers really get to a tornado? Every year a chaser finds himself within a hundred yards of a tornado–not always on purpose. Very often these are a surprise and they are not caught on video. They are not large either. When a tornado is large, chasers rarely get closer than a mile, and more often, further than that. • Could a tornado pick up a tank truck like in Twister? No. We have often wondered why the tank truck, weighing perhaps 80,000 pounds or more was picked up, but the pickup truck, weighing 3000 pounds, was not picked up. I guess that is because it wasn’t in the script. In real life, the tanker would have been blown over, rolled, and mangled. • Tornadoes really seem to come in all different sizes and shapes–some are long
