'Twisters' tornado consultant and director talk about film's stormy real-life inspirations

Editor's note: This story contains minor spoilers for the movie "Twisters."

Almost three decades ago, Oklahoma meterologist Kevin Kelleher was tapped to help the cast and crew of the movie "Twister" learn the basics of tornado science and even to vet some of the ideas behind the Hollywood closeup for Oklahoma's famously stormy weather.

When show business again touched down in the Sooner State for the making of the long-awaited follow-up film, Kelleher found himself reprising his role as a technical adviser on "Twisters."

In the almost 30 years in between, much has changed in the world of weather science — and much of it has changed because of the way the 1996 blockbuster spun up interest in meteorology.

"There's been a lot of technology changes and upgrades in radar and things you see in the movie. But we still don't know exactly how tornadoes form. So, we see them trying to get to that," Kelleher told The Oklahoman at the recent Oklahoma City premiere for "Twisters."

When they talked about the weather at the OKC premiere, the movie's stars frequently cited what remains unknown about the causes of tornadoes as the most interesting fact they learned while making new, contemporary chapter for "Twister."

"The mystery around this thing is pretty profound," "Twisters" actor Glen Powell said on the OKC red carpet. "We just got such an education on what, not only the original 'Twister' meant to this community, but when I think of storm chasing in general, it's such a beautiful thing. This sort of cowboy scientist aspect ... is really singular. And I really can't wait to unleash this thing on the world, because I really think people are gonna have a newfound respect for all of it."

"Twisters" stars Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Anthony Ramos, director Lee Isaac Chung and executive producer Ashley Jay Sandberg celebrated the release of the summer tentpole movie on July 15 by walking the red carpet at the special invitation-only screening at Harkins Bricktown 16 theater in downtown OKC.

The long-awaited follow-up to the 1996 blockbuster "Twister," which also filmed in Oklahoma, officially opened Friday in theaters, and quickly packed a wallop at the box office.

Which 'Twisters' star was the star student at 'weather boot camp?'

Since his standalone sequel doesn't actually continue the story of the original movie or include characters from the 1990s film, Chung told The Oklahoman he thought of "Twisters" as "a new science experiment."

The long-awaited follow-up to the 1996 blockbuster "Twister" stars Edgar-Jones as Kate Carter, a former storm chaser haunted by a devastating encounter with a tornado during her college years who now studies storm patterns on screens safely in New York City. She is lured back into storm season on the open plains by her friend, Javi (Ramos) to test a groundbreaking new tracking system.

Out in the field in the midst of record tornadic conditions, they cross paths with "Tornado Wrangler" Tyler Owens (Powell), a charming social-media superstar who thrives on posting his storm-chasing adventures with his rowdy crew.

Principal photography on "Twisters" got underway in Oklahoma City on May 8, 2023 — right in the middle of storm season. Throughout 60 days of principal photography, "Twisters" engaged with multiple communities statewide, including OKC, El Reno, Chickasha, Midwest City, Spencer, Kingfisher, Calumet, Hinton, Fairview, Okarche, Kremlin, Burbank and Pawhuska.

As the cast prepared to make "Twisters," Kelleher, who is the retired deputy director of the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, helped organize a “weather boot camp" to educate the actors on meteorology and storm chasing. British actress Edgar-Jones soon emerged not only as the movie's star but as the star student.

"You wouldn't believe how much research she did. When she first got to Oklahoma, she said, 'I'm really falling in love with weather science. I might get a degree. I might go to a community college and learn some of this stuff.' So, she was locked in," Chung told The Oklahoman in a one-on-one interview the day after the OKC premiere.

"We went to a lecture at the National Weather Center that Rick Smith was doing for us, and she sat up front. And she would raise her hand more than any of us, and she was taking notes. And I remember Tony and Glen were looking at each other like, 'We better get serious about this.'"

How did real-life tornadoes inspire the storms in 'Twisters?'

"Twisters" includes a whopping six separate storm sequences boasting 10 total tornadoes. The filmmakers drew on a large cache of reference material provided by Kelleher and his colleagues and used a combination of practical special effects and digital visual effects to create their cinematic storms.

"Every single tornado had a basis in actual tornadoes that happened, and actual video and pictures. ... So, we made sure we gave them a context for that, and then they chose which tornadoes they wanted for which scenes," Kelleher said.

"So it's really based on things that actually happened. And the graphics, if you've seen the movie, you see how realistic the graphics look. If you compare that to a real video, you'd see they're pretty close in how they were able to do it."

Although the movie's stars Edgar-Jones, Powell and Brandon Perea had to wait until after filming was completed to try storm chasing for themselves, Chung and FX supervisor Ben Snow accompanied Kelleher on a chase during production.

"That was really great. That was fun," the director said, adding he wants to go again next storm season. "It helped a lot. Ben and I would talk about what we had seen later on. It helped keep us honest with what is happening in the environment."

How does 'Twisters' call back to the science experiment of the first 'Twister?'

Like the original "Twister," the not-quite-a-sequel mixes real science with science fiction. Still, Kelleher recalled that the basic premise of the 1996 film, which centers on scientists trying to put equipment in the path of tornadoes in the hopes of learning more about them from the inside out, was largely based on real life.

"In the first one, it wasn't much of a stretch. I mean, we did that: That was what we did at the severe storms lab, where I worked," Kelleher said. "The little balls that each had instruments in them, that was the stretch. So, it was a kind of a technology stretch."

"Dorothy," the high-tech barrel that held those tiny sensors in "Twister," actually was based on a real-life piece of lab equipment called TOTO. The long-awaited follow-up film features a callback to Dorothy, which meant that the "Twisters" crew got to make their own version of the iconic prop.

"They made it look as though it was really made back then; they weathered it. And we made it Dorothy V, because the first film has one through four," Chung said. "All of those sensor balls, we made those as well ... and it's a new propeller on the top. People had a lot of fun with those. It was exciting to see them."

How does 'Twisters' merge science fact and fiction?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has launched a new online resource at https://www.noaa.gov/twisters that breaks down how the science in "Twisters" compares with real life.

The new movie's mix of science fiction and fact is more conceptual as Edgar-Jones' Kate is testing a theory that introducing large amounts of certain chemicals can "tame" a tornado by hindering the formation of a funnel.

"This one is solid on the technology that exists — a little bit of stretch on the radars, in terms of size and so on — but this stretch is more of a physical stretch, of what we can and cannot do with Mother Nature," Kelleher said.

Although he declined on the red carpet to get into whether Kate's concept of taming a tornado could ever really work, he praised the "Twisters" filmmakers' efforts to get the science right.

"When I was in town, I was on set, so most of the days. It was amazing, for one thing, to have such a professional group that wanted to get as much science correct as they could — and from the top down, that's what they were after. So, I'm very blessed to be able to do that twice. I never thought I'd do it once," Kelleher said.

The blockbuster success of "Twister" is credited with creating a veritable storm surge of interest in weather science that he wouldn't mind seeing repeated.

"We're linked at the hip with the University of Oklahoma, and what we noticed was that student enrollment in meteorology went up — it doubled — and it really never came down too much," Kelleher said.

"That brought in this great knowledge base and talent base that helped attack some of the problems in meteorology. And if that comes out of the second one as well, that would be great, because we still have a lot of unanswered questions."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: How 'Twisters' pays homage to the first movie's science experiment