Secrets of the Unknown: Tornadoes

Tornadoes explores nature's deadly spirals. Highlights include actual footage of the violent force and the mass destruction that tornadoes create.

1987-01-01 | en

Stormchasers

Track monsoons, hurricanes, blizzards, and tornadoes. Take a journey around the planet to experience our most extreme storms and to witness the dramatic--and often perilous--efforts of scientists in the pursuit of understanding weather.Join meteorologists in the cockpit of a P-3 weather plane as they penetrate the eye of a hurricane; and in the tense, decisive moments on the road as they focus their radar on an approaching tornado, traveling to the heart of severe storms to learn what makes weather systems tick. Experience the bumpy ride into the sudden and spectacular calm of a hurricane’s eye, or the commando-like raid to the very brink of a killer tornado, and experience one of the elemental joys of doing science: that of confronting nature head-on to divine its awesome secrets.

1995-10-02 | en

National Geographic: Inside the Mega Twister

The tornado that struck El Reno, Oklahoma, on May 31, 2013, defined superlatives. It was the largest twister ever recorded on Earth.

2015-11-01 | en

Mr. Tornado

Meteorologist Tetsuya Theodore "Ted" Fujita spent ten months studying The Super Outbreak of 1974, which was the most intense tornado outbreak on record. Mr. Tornado is the remarkable story of the man whose groundbreaking work in research and applied science saved thousands of lives and helped Americans prepare for and respond to dangerous weather phenomena.

2020-05-19 | en

Twisters: The Real Story

In 1996, Universal Pictures released 'Twister', a film about tornado researchers. This documentary revisits the topic, exploring the motivations of those risking their lives to study dangerous weather. With never-before-seen footage and interviews, it delves into the lives of Storm Chasers.

2024-07-01 | en

Forces Of Nature

Witness the awesome power and the unimaginable destruction of explosive volcanoes, ground-buckling earthquakes, and deadly tornadoes as you head into the field with scientists who risk their lives exploring the origins and behaviors of these fearsome natural disasters.

2004-05-04 | en

Countdown to Survival: Tornado

Commissioned by the U.S. Government Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, the film describes the elements of a modern tornado warning system as was developed at the Texas Tornado Warning Conferences in 1953 and included radar detection of tornadoes, a spotter network, and improved communications between the U.S. Weather Bureau, spotters, and public officials to better disseminate warnings to the public. In the 1960s TV changed the way tornado safety and preparedness information was disseminated and this film is likely a product of that development. This film opens with vignettes of people in a small town somewhere in America’s suburban midwest. It then goes on to display the moments before and after the onset of a tornado and informs the audience of appropriate safety response measures.

1976-01-01 | en

Tornadoes: The Entity

A documentary detailing a collection of amateur footage of tornadoes in the United States for over 50 years.

1993-05-07 | en

Tornado, a year later

2022-06-23 | cs

Tornado! Hurricane! Flood!: Wonders of the Weather

This video presents a look at the forces of nature in their most devastating mode: lightning storms, tornadoes, flash floods, tidal waves, and hurricanes. The film, made for The Discovery Channel, accompanies professional storm chasers as they ride into the eye of a category five hurricane to gather data and get a close-up view. There is footage of a tornado with 300-mile-per-hour winds, as well as 100-foot tidal waves hurtling towards shore at 500 miles per hour. The viewer witnesses a flash flood and hears an interview with a lightning strike survivor.

1996-11-01 | en

Verrückt nach Tornados

2009-01-01 | de

Twisted

In Thorold, Ontario in the summer of 1996, a movie legend was made when a real-life tornado hit a drive-in theatre during a screening of Twister. But how much truth really lies inside this tale of life (or weather) imitating art?

2016-09-12 | en

Joplin, Missouri - A Tornado Story

Joplin native Chip Gubera's documentary JOPLIN MISSOURI: A TORNADO STORY is a comprehensive, informative account of the devastation wrought on his hometown by a natural disaster and its subsequent recovery. On May 21, 2011 the deadliest tornado ever recorded struck Joplin, an F5 in which wind gusts exceeded 200 mph. In fact, it was not a single tornado, but a multi-vortex tornado created by two converging storms. As local meteorologist Jeremiah Cook explained, this meant that the half mile wide tornado had several "fingers," each an individual tornado, and the rains were so heavy one could not see them before they struck. Narrator George Noory's jovial voice and the monotone recollections of survivors belie the overwhelming scope of the devastation.

2012-11-09 | en

Where Was God?

May 20, 2013––an EF5 tornado ripped through Moore, OK. The magnitude of devastation measured over eight times greater than the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima. As the world watched, one question continued to surface—Where Was God? This story follows several families and individuals who recount the timeline of destruction and share their experiences of the devastating and miraculous events that changed their lives forever.

2014-05-16 | en

Wild Weather

An innovative documentary that illustrates how weather works by performing brave, ambitious (even unlikely) experiments that show how nature transforms simple ingredients like wind, water and temperature into something spectacular and powerful.

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Witness: Joplin Tornado

Weaving together dozens of professional and amateur archival sources, along with dramatic interviews with the people behind the cameras, Witness: Joplin Tornado reconstructs the deadliest tornado in modern times, through the eyes of those who lived through it. A group of strangers huddle together in a convenience store cooler, shrieking in terror as the tornado tears apart everything around them. A husband-and-wife stormchasing team find themselves caught in the teeth of the storm, then pressed into service when it finally passes. A young mother sobs as she surveys her daughter’s destroyed bedroom. Yet all the while they film, using their cameras to record both the harrowing experience of the storm itself and the shock of what confronted them after — homes destroyed, neighborhoods flattened, a city devastated. Witness: Joplin Tornado tells the story of that day and its aftermath entirely through the videos and voices of the survivors.

2012-01-01 | en

Bayesian : les mystères du naufrage du superyacht en sicile

2024-09-27 | fr

Deadliest Tornadoes

Scientists strive to understand what caused the devasting tornado outbreak of April 2011. Could their research improve future tornado prediction?

2012-01-01 | en

Traqueurs de tornades

2022-07-16 | fr

Places in the Heart

In 1935 rural Texas, recently widowed Edna Spaulding struggles to survive with two small children, a farm to run, and very little money in the bank - not to mention a deadly tornado and the unwelcome presence of the Ku Klux Klan. Edna is aided by her beautician sister, Margaret; a blind boarder, Mr. Will; and a would-be thief, Moze, who decides to teach Edna how to plant and harvest cotton.

1984-09-11 | en