Every tornado from the original Twister & Twisters, ranked by power

Twisted and its sequel, Twisted, both feature a variety of different tornadoes that show the terrifying range of destructive power present in these fearsome inclement weather events. Upping the ante from the previous film, each new tornado introduced in Twisted is more catastrophic than the previous one, whether due to the force generated or other unique circumstances. From the gentle controlled tornadoes of the first moments of both films to the apocalyptic cyclones that ravage the interior of the United States in the climax of Twisted, there’s a lot of power to unlock in both films.

In real life, tornadoes are measured on a chart called the Fujita scale, classifying each twister from F0, at least intense, to F5, at strongest. Considering how true to real life Twisted in other words, this scale is frequently mentioned by the cast of both films. However, not every tornado displayed in Twisted and Twisted It receives a canonical rating on the Fujita scale, so you need to do a little detective work to determine the power of each individual funnel.

13

Kate’s Tornado Demonstration

Twisted

Not every tourbillon presented in the Twisted the franchise necessarily has to be so destructive. By creating a model tornado, Kate is able to irrefutably demonstrate the true wonder and natural beauty that events can bring. Of course, it seems like this controlled display of a purposefully generated tornado is easily the most harmless one in the entire franchise.

By using a model, Kate is able to remind the audience how tornadoes form and are sustained in the 28 years since Twisted was released. Within the confines of her miniature city, Kate’s old project is able to demonstrate the ethereal grace with which twisters can move, creating a small-scale version of one with loving detail. Hardly qualifying as a true tornado, Kate’s model twister wouldn’t even register on the Fujita scale, generating only pitiful winds.

12

The waterspouts

Twisted

One of the coolest things about Twisted duology is the way it explains real-life weather phenomena in stunning action sequences. At one point Twisted, the characters come across a twin system of swirling waterspouts, practically begging them to investigate closer. In real life, waterspouts are a very real possibility; essentially normal tornadoes that form over bodies of water, causing liquid to be pulled upward in a mesmerizing column of liquid.

As dangerous as the twin waterspouts may seem, they end up being one of the mildest storms in the entire series. The crew is essentially unharmed after allowing the two cyclones to pass right over them – although the truck spins in a tight circle on its axis and is hit by water droplets, nothing is actually damaged by either vortex. The end result of the twin waterspouts was essentially an elaborate car wash that was a little rougher than average, except for the presence of Twistedthe infamous CGI flying cow that glides past passengers.

11

The F1 ditch twister

Twisted

Even the weakest tornadoes can still be a dire threat worth taking seriously. This is proven both at the beginning Twistedwhile Jo and Bill encounter a small but powerful F1 tornado. The first funnel that forms on the film’s current screen, the F1 tornado sets the stage for the devastation that will occur in later acts of the film. By doing this, Twisted Accurately represents the average tornado with an exciting storm chase.

Rolling in the brown-tinged wind from its muddy surroundings into a normal field, the F1 Ditch tornado’s damage starts light, peeling off a few roofs here, knocking down a few trees there, and being a general nuisance. However, before long, the cyclone is powerful enough to devastate a grain silo, further coloring its contents with valuable food. This tornado then claims the J-10 Honcho, the Dorothy I, a wooden bridge, and a tractor trailer, emphasizing the danger of even a small tornado registering on the Fujita scale.

10

The Fireworks Show Tornado

Twisted

An example of a tornado with more style than substance, fireworks show the tornado in Twisted It was a game-changer in terms of how creative the series was willing to be with how its cyclones affect its environment. Returning to her study of tornadoes after being traumatized in the film’s opening moments, Kate agrees to accompany Javi’s Storm Par team to a relatively harmless F1 tornado. Soon, the twister undergoes a fireworks display on standby, detonating a series of colorful explosions within the funnel walls as it glides across the field.

Like another F1 tornado, it’s safe to say that the fireworks tornado was probably only slightly more powerful than the F1 Ditch twister in Twisted. Apparently, it at least had winds strong enough to collect an entire display of celebratory explosives, somehow detonating only through the strong wind. How scientifically accurate this image is may be up for debate, but it’s an incredibly cool scene if nothing else.

9

The Tornado F3 “Jumper”

Twisted

Marking a significant increase in the severity and scope of destruction caused by the franchise’s tornadoes, the F3 tornado is named for the “leap” in seriousness it represents. In an F3, wind speeds can easily reach the 200-mile-per-hour range, causing untold damage to man-made structures as well as natural landscape features. In the film, this tornado presents a serious challenge even to the film’s experienced storm chasers.

As if the wind speed wasn’t enough, the “Jumper” tornado is accompanied by a hailstorm that hits the team, further demonstrating how tornadoes can interact with other weather events with devastating effects. Eventually, the unpredictable cyclone passes through a series of power lines, causing explosions that knock down utility poles, trapping the Dorothy II in place. This forces the crew to evacuate, much to Jo’s panic and alarm.

8

The F3 twins

Twisted

The only thing scarier than an F3 tornado (other than obviously higher-rated tornadoes) is an F3 tornado that can split in half. That’s exactly what Kate and Javi’s team finds at a crucial moment in their Twisted, following an F3 only to watch in horror as the single cyclone splits into a rotating system of two twisters. From here, Kate has to use her valuable meteorological knowledge to correctly identify the stronger of the two, dividing the group.

Twin tornadoes, also commonly called “sisters”, are a rare but very real phenomenon possible in real life, forming when two separate tornadoes converge. The biblical wrath of nature is quite alarming in this scenario, which does not escape the destruction caused by disasters. As terrifying as they were, after the twin tornadoes, Kate can see that Javi truly cares about the storm victims he so desperately pursues.

7

The Sapulpa Tornado

Twisted

Moving into truly serious territory, the Sapulpa tornado is Twisted‘depiction of a truly frightening climate that poses a very real risk to ordinary people. While bonding in their childhood hometown of Sapulpa, Kate and Tyler end up facing a tornado that forms in an empty field not far away in order to test Kate’s theories about “taming” a twister. To conduct their research, Kate and Tyler release hundreds of “beads” into the walls of the vortex, collecting data as they go.

Sapulpa, Oklahoma, is a real town that sees a frighteningly high number of tornado events recorded as F2 or higher on the Fujita scale, grounding this scene in reality. This particular tornado doesn’t have much of a landscape to prove its mettle, leaving the full extent of its power relatively difficult to gauge. Still, it’s a neat and elegant tornado that provides Kate with some valuable information on how to improve her theories.

6

The Wakita Tornado

Twisted

A truly impressive scene in the classic sense of the word in Twisted features a devastating tornado that passes through Wakita, causing rampant destruction. This scene alone proves why Twisted is one of the best disaster films of all time, with dazzling special effects that excellently convey the unbridled, awe-inspiring power of a dangerous tornado. Against the backdrop of a gray sky dotted with lightning, the Wakita tornado is one of the scariest sights in the entire world. Twisted duology.

At an F4 on the Fujita scale, the Wakita tornado’s wind speed is easily over 200 miles per hour. The twister hits an unprepared drive-in movie showing, destroying the projector and throwing away the cars as if they were mere toys. Aside from its intensity, what makes the Wakita tornado so frightening is how quickly it appears, taking innocent bystanders completely by surprise.

5

The Rodeo Tornado

Twisted

Another F4 twister, the rodeo tornado is a storm that approaches quickly and hits quite hard. Hoping to distract her from her problems, Tyler invites Kate to a local rodeo in Stillwater, Oklahoma, hoping to further bond with her. Terrifyingly, Kate just can’t catch a break when it comes to tornadoes, with a devastating F4 tornado interrupting the festivities as it passes through them. Before long, Kate and Tyler are fighting for shelter.

Destroying multitudes of people and animals, the rodeo tornado is one of the most alarming in the series. By the time Kate, Tyler, and the random mother and son they manage to help emerge from the relative safety of a drained pool, the tornado has already devastated the entire town, leaving no other survivors. Because of the large number of casualties it inflicted, it is safe to say that the rodeo tornado was at the highest level of the F4 classification.

4

The 1969 Tornado

Twisted

From now on, tornadoes in the Twisted The series range from relatively localized but still devastating acts of destruction to epic cataclysms indicative of the fearsome power of nature. The beginning of the duology’s F5 tornadoes is the first storm in the series, the 1969 Oklahoma tornado that killed Jo’s father. In real life, a deadly F5 tornado actually swept through Olkahoma in 1969, which is implied to be the same storm. While trying to secure the cellar door serving as shelter for her family, Jo’s father is sadly killed by the unfathomable concussive power of the dangerous F5 cyclone.

At an F5, tornadoes feature wind speeds that exceed 260 miles per hour, easily lifting objects as heavy as cars more than 100 feet. It’s a difficult decision to make, but the 1969 tornado appears to be the weakest of the F5s featured in the series, simply due to the limited view the audience gets through the eyes of a child Jo. With a confirmed death count of just one, the devastation left in the wake of this maddeningly powerful tornado still pales in comparison to the duology’s strongest jets.

3

The F5 Opening

Twisted

Keeping the tradition, Twisted also opens with a destructive F5 that takes the lives of the main character’s loved ones, triggering an adversarial relationship with tornadoes. Desperate to secure a funding grant, Kate and her former team foolishly dive into the belly of the beast, chasing a local tornado. Their excitement soon turns to panic when the storm suddenly turns into F5, with increasing winds that end up cruelly taking the lives of everyone but Kate, leaving her traumatized.

This harrowing opening sequence demonstrates how callous tornadoes can be in their indiscriminate wrath. This opening scene helps solidify the connection between Twisted and Twisted while also reminding viewers how horrific these disasters can be. As for its strength, this tornado was capable of transforming simple debris into deadly projectiles, not to mention it drew an adult man from a considerable distance.

2

The last F5

Twisted

Closing the circle until its opening, Twisted ends with a climactic final showdown against a nearly hurricane-level tornado. The weather delivers on its promise in the film’s final moments, delivering a predicted F5 tornado with an impressive mile-wide radius. The enormous turbulent cloud of fury consumes almost the entire horizon, creating a tremendously powerful threat. With its incredibly strong winds, the monstrous tornado throws a tree at the Dorothy III that renders it inoperable.

The power of this tornado speaks for itself as it devastates the countryside, killing Jonas and his truck driver in one deadly blow. The twister can destroy buildings without even passing over them, sucking more and more debris into its core through the force of its blasts. Even the ground itself is stable enough against the titanic tornado, which chews up a massive earth cloud while charting a dangerous course certain for Jo and Bill.

1

The El Reno F5

Twisted

It’s fair that Twisted ends with an action set piece that manages to surpass its predecessor, with a tornado more powerful than ever portrayed on screen. In the film’s climax, Kate and her team chase a gigantic F5 tornado of epic proportions that heads straight for the defenseless city of El Reno. Increasing in size, the cyclone only grows larger and stronger as it approaches its target, giving the series the most destructive tornado yet.

Instantly destroying buildings and sucking innocent bystanders into the air, the El Reno F5 is easily the strongest tornado in the entire duology in terms of raw power. As if that weren’t ominous enough, the vortex at one point passes over an oil refinery, resulting in a trail of deadly flame plumes that add fiery swirls of additional devastation. Fortunately, Kate finally manages to make her method of “taming” the tornado work at the right time, putting an end to the world’s greatest threat. Twisted series.