Tornado Alley Strikes Portland

Last night I had the opportunity to go to the premiere for the OMSI Film Festival. If you’re not familiar, there are a TON of amazing IMAX films that will be screened in the coming weeks, including one that should be of particular interest to disaster geeks…Tornado Alley.

I’m posting the trailer and the film description below, but I do want to add two things:
1. Watching an IMAX movie can be a little nauseating. You’ve been warned.

2. Tornado chasing is incredibly dangerous. Please don’t try this yourself.
3. Tornados may make for good movie fodder, but they also have a real life impact. If you want help those affected by the recent deadly tornadoes in Alabama and beyond, you can do so right here.

Join Storm Chasers star Sean Casey and the researchers of VORTEX 2, the most ambitious effort ever made to understand the origins and evolution of tornadoes, on this heart-pounding science adventure. Armed with a 70mm camera, a fleet of customized vehicles designed to withstand gale force winds, torrential rains and unrelenting hail, and an arsenal of the most advanced weather measurement instruments ever created, the stars of Tornado Alley take audiences on a thrilling quest to experience a tornado’s destructive power at point blank range. Experience the adrenaline and the science of nature’s most dramatic phenomena!

Traversing the “severe weather capital of the world,” Tornado Alley documents two unprecedented missions seeking to encounter one of Earth’s most awe-inspiring events—the birth of a tornado. Filmmaker Sean Casey’s personal quest to capture the birth of a tornado with a 70mm camera takes viewers on a breathtaking journey into the heart of the storm. A team of equally driven scientists, the VORTEX2 researchers, experience the relentless strength of nature’s elemental forces as they literally surround tornadoes and the supercell storms that form them, gathering the most comprehensive severe weather data ever collected. This science adventure reveals the beauty and the power of some of our planet’s most extreme—and least understood—weather phenomena.


See Tornado Alley for yourself at the OMSI Film Festival.
June 24 – 25: 1:00 p.m., 3:00 p.m., 6:00 p.m., 9:00 p.m.
June 26: 1:00 p.m., 3:00 p.m., 6:00 p.m.