‘Hurricane 3D’ swirls into Imax

Movie takes viewers into eye of the storm

Penetrating swirling bands of wind and blinding rain is never routine for the crews who fly into the center of tropical cyclones each year. Their missions, to gather direct weather readings from within these massive storms, helps save lives by improving the forecast strength and movement of these deadly storms.

Audiences at the Tennessee Aquarium Imax 3D Theater will get a taste of what it’s like to fly into the eye of a hurricane and a storm on land beginning Friday, Sept. 29, when “Hurricane 3D” opens.

Audiences will follow the transformation of the film’s main “character,” Hurricane Lucy, a fictional storm whose growth is based on the development of several actual hurricanes that filmmakers documented over a five-year period.

Lucy begins with a gentle breeze over the African Sahel that grows into a monsoon before swelling to monumental proportions over the Atlantic Ocean.

Ships are tossed on growing ocean swells, and violent winds and torrential rains of Hurricane Lucy crash into the rainforests of the Carribean before causing immense storm surges in the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way, the film peeks into the lives of a host of supporting characters, the men, women, plants and animals in Lucy’s path who are affected.

“Beyond the question of where hurricanes strike, we wanted to tell the tales of the wind. To speak of winds beyond imagination,” says Andy Byatt, the film’s producer.

“To understand t he stress of waiting; the relief of the near miss. We wanted to observe the fragility and resilience of nature, to discover what the mightiest weather system on earth means to all those who live beneath its shadow.

With nearly one-third of this hurricane season still ahead, some of the most destructive storms on record have already been produced. Weather experts say this is the most active year since 1995, the year Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans.

“Hurricane 3D” helps audiences understand how these massive storms form and why one tropical system seems to weak- en quickly while others become monsters. The film also delves into the ways tropical storms transfer heat, shape our lives and impact nature.

“Giant-screen theaters are the perfect platform for this heart-pounding story of one of nature’s most powerful” forces,” noted Eric Dillens, chairman of nWave Pictures.

PHOTO BY NWAVE Hurricane-tracking aircraft capture the enormity of fictional Hurricane Lucy during the Imax movie.