PLOT
Kate Carter works in Oklahoma with her storm chaser friends Javi, Addy, and Praveen, and her boyfriend, Jeb. Alongside a Dorothy V doppler, the team launches barrels of sodium polyacrylate beads into a tornado to reduce its intensity and secure funding for further research. However, the attempt is unsuccessful due to the tornado suddenly intensifying into an EF5, killing Jeb, Addy and Praveen while Javi and Kate survive, the latter blaming herself for underestimating the tornado and quits storm chasing and the experiment altogether.
Five years later, Kate works at a NOAA office in New York City. Javi, now working for mobile tornado radar company Storm Par, offers Kate a one-week position with his team to test a new tornado scanning system using phased-array radar. Kate initially declines but has a change of heart after Javi sends a news report about a tornado that destroyed a town without warning and assuring her that they have a chance to save lives. Kate and Javi join the Storm Par team in Oklahoma, which includes Javi's business partner Scott. Popular YouTube storm chaser Tyler Owens, known as the "Tornado Wrangler", also arrives in Oklahoma from Arkansas looking to capitalize on a predicted tornado outbreak. Tyler is joined by his crew of Boone, Dani, Dexter, Lily, and British journalist Ben.
Storm Par and Tyler's crew chase an EF1 tornado that has touched down in a nearby wind farm. Kate suffers a panic attack causing her to drive away, rendering her unable to help Javi set up the final scanner. The next day, the team tracks another storm which produces another EF1, and a satellite that splits off. Storm Par chases the Satellite as it intensifies into an EF3, and takes out one of the scanners. Kate and Javi barely escape and drive to the nearby tornado-ravaged town of Crystal Springs to help recovery efforts, along with Tyler's crew. Having initially dismissed Tyler and his team as glory hounds, Kate is surprised to learn they use merchandise profits to aid tornado victims, while also learning that Storm Par investor Marshall Riggs profiteers from Javi's work by purchasing tornado-damaged land at low prices only to re-sell them later for exorbitant amounts.
That night, Tyler invites Kate to a nearby rodeo in Stillwater, where they begin bonding. When an EF4 tornado hits the area, Kate, Tyler, and several others take shelter in an empty motel pool. In the aftermath, Kate confronts Javi about Riggs' intentions and claims Javi is ignorant to the victims being exploited, causing an offended Javi to thoughtlessly blame her for their friends' deaths. Distraught, Kate retreats to her mother's farm in Sapulpa. Tyler follows her and uncovers Kate's previous research regarding the tornado disruption experiment five years ago. Kate initially declines Tyler's offer to help retry the experiment due to her guilt and trauma, but later accepts when Tyler points out that she's already had so much taken from her and her experiment can still give people a fighting chance against tornadoes. The next day, they release the beads into a passing tornado, but it fails to dissipate. Using data scans provided by an apologetic Javi, Kate can hypothesize a change in the experiment to correct a previous oversight, namely adding silver iodide.
The team tracks another tornado near El Reno. The tornado becomes rain-wrapped and nearly hits Javi and Scott. They are nearly killed but they escape just as the tornado catches fire after hitting an oil refinery. The tornado explodes in size, becoming a mile-wide EF5 that begins shifting towards El Reno. As Kate and the Wranglers head into town, Javi decides to follow them, but Scott pressures him into continuing their mission for Riggs. Enraged, Javi abandons Scott by the road and quits his partnership with Riggs, finally seeing how callous Riggs and his team are.
In El Reno, Kate, Tyler, and their team, learning that all shelters are full, evacuate the remaining townspeople into a nearby movie theater when a derailed streetcar and debris traps Tyler. As Kate struggles to free him, Javi arrives just in time to help save Tyler before a water tower nearly collapses on them. With no basement to take shelter in and the tornado heading straight for the theater, Kate drives Tyler's truck into the tornado's center. She fires the silver iodide into the tornado, and after a brief struggle with the controls, she successfully launches the polyacrylate beads, but the vehicle is overturned. The tornado rips the theater open, nearly pulling Lily and Tyler out right as the measures take effect, and the tornado dissipates. The team rescues Kate and celebrates the experiment's success.
Sometime later, as Kate waits at the airport for her flight back to New York City to gain funding for further research, Tyler shows up and chases Kate to stop her from leaving. Upon learning that flights have been delayed because of a nearby storm, the two swiftly depart for the storm. A closing montage shows that Ben's story focused on Kate and that Kate, Tyler, and Javi have joined a new tornado radar business.