Carla Mendoza

Geog 1700-007
2/11/15
Project #1 Disaster Movie Discussion: The Day after Tomorrow (2004)
The things that the movie The Day After Tomorrow did correctly where: they reported on
a hurricane and but gave almost no information on it, just that it was the strongest that had even
been recorded. They told us that the tornados that happened in the L.A. area had started
combining into one huge tornado which does in fact happen, this is correct but they didnt
explain why the tornado had even been possible in that arid climate they just blamed the polar
ice caps melting for most of the time. One of the ladies in the movie commented on hurricanes
not forming over land and so the three storms couldnt be hurricanes, but they never labeled the
type of storm it was.

What they specifically got wrong about weather patterns in this movie are: they made a
tsunami happen without any sort of reason, they had people freeze to death in seconds due to
degrees of about negative 150 Fahrenheit, they explained to us that the air currents had changed
and that the ocean had gained so much fresh water that they had started to desalinate. We know
this is impossible unless the whole entire ocean froze and led to the salt falling out. They also
said that the ocean dropped by 13 degrees, which is impossible in the amount of time that they
showed it, happened in and also all the fish in the ocean would likely not survive such a change.

They further explained that the air in the troposphere was feeding a hurricane shaped
storm and that since the cool air was dropping so fast it didnt have time to heat back up, this in
fact defies the laws of physics. We know that if air from the troposphere came down at those
speeds (about 400 mph) then the air would gain kinetic energy due to it moving so fast, also the
air in the upper troposphere has less compression and when it comes down it will have more
pressure which would also heat it. Therefore the movie shouldnt have had an ice storm in it but
rather a massive heat wave that would have killed everything in its path.

This movie showed us that the data that the scientists in this movie had didnt actually
give them a correct time map of when certain events would happen. It showed that only scientists
that are considered crazy are actually able to predict what is going to happen to the whole entire
world and especially the areas affected, but it also contradicted itself by showing us that the data
even they gathered was wrong and that events were happening too fast. It showed that the
weather prediction techniques did work but not in the scale of this particular storm. It did show
us one person attempting to warn the public about tornadoes but by that time the tornadoes had
already formed. It had the scientists try and tell the vice president to make a long term plan of
dealing with the situation and a major evacuation that were not really played out (except for the
hospital in the movie) but those warnings were ignored and treated has unimportant. And yes this
movie did actually show us that Humans can turn disastrous events into catastrophes by ignoring
warnings and not having preparation plans.

I would also like to say that the information that is wrong in this type of movie is the
reason people like my father dont believe in having any plans or the like because they think that

the movies exaggerate everything by x200 and while that is true it is always good to have a plan
and these movies with made up facts actually discourage preparation for certain events.