Mark Twain's memorable line about Missouri weather, "If you don't like it, just wait a few minutes. It will change," rarely has been closer to the truth than we have witnessed this year, and the screwy weather patterns of recent years probably will get worse. Whether the weather is due to global warming, greenhouse gases, atomic accidents or just plain old age, varicose veins and heart palpitations for our planet is not for me to speculate upon.
But a group of Oklahoma Sooners (wouldn't you just know it?) is chasing down violent windstorms with the same dedication that their football and basketball teams use on loose balls. The result is "Tornado Alley," a very interesting movie now at the Saint Louis Science Center. It isn't my idea of how to spend an afternoon, but at least the folks in the movie don't sing "Boomer Sooner."
A project named VORTEX2 involves a group of dedicated professional storm chasers. They drive cars that are reinforced here and there looking a lot like the vehicles from "Mad Max." They have all sorts of communications devices and they prowl the dusty roads as if they were bootleggers on a delivery run. When they sight, or hear about, an incipient tornado, they crank it up and head for the worst of it, madly shooting film at anything that moves.
Driving through severe windstorms, and there are more of them than real tornadoes, is much like being inside Ted Kilgore's cocktail shaker while the bar-master is in the throes of creation. While the scientists are reading dials and making notes, we watch the trees sway and the lightning flash. We don't learn much about tornadoes, except maybe to stay away from them, but the IMAX cameras and projection system make the experience that much scarier.
Tornado Alley is at the Omnimax Theatre in the Saint Louis Science Center; call 314-289-4424 for showtimes.
—Joe