Director Roland Emmerich read "The Coming Global Superstorm," a non-fiction novel by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, before he began writing for this film. Emmerich concedes that while the events portrayed in the film are indeed possible, the time frame over which they take place was implausibly short and tailored for sheer entertainment value.

While speaking to fans in Denver, director Roland Emmerich said he became interested in doing a movie involving weather while shooting The Patriot (2000). He said his whole day revolved around what the weather forecast was in order to shoot the outdoor scenes and that he really just wanted to control the weather himself.

Roland Emmerich, out of his own pocket, paid $200,000 to make the production "carbon-neutral" - the first of its kind in Hollywood - all carbon dioxide emitted by the production was offset by the planting of trees, and investments in renewable energy.

Roland Emmerich confided that the Statue of Liberty would be turned over by the force of the massive amount of water flowing around it but said he wanted to create a symbol of American values that stood up to the forces.

The footage of the plane that crashed in the Midwest before the FAA's flight ban is actually a stock photo of a January 1990 Avianca Airlines plane crash on Long Island.

The US Army loaned several UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters for the rescue scene at the end, prompting the Canadian authorities to reassure the people of Montreal that they weren't being invaded by the USA.

Casting Kenneth Welsh as the Vice President was controversial due to his physical resemblance to US Vice-President Dick Cheney, but Roland Emmerich insisted on it for that very reason, likely to highlight the Bush/Cheney administration's opposition to the Kyoto Protocol for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Before the film was released, NASA sent a memo out to all of its employees stating that they were not allowed to comment on the likelihood of the events portrayed in this movie, but later rescinded the restriction.

The building used as the United States Embassy in Mexico was actually the Centro Vida/Life Center Ministries and private school in El Paso, Texas. Mexico is visible from the building, which is on Glory Road (coincidentally named after the movie with that title that takes place in El Paso) and only a few blocks from the University of Texas at El Paso. The church and school have since moved and the building is currently vacant.

On the bookshelf behind Jack's bed are the Dennis Lehane novels "Sacred" and "Gone, Baby, Gone".

The consultation by NASA scientists was requested before the filming of the movie, but NASA stated that the events in the film were too ridiculous to actually occur, and hence denied the request.

The Manchester United player who is seen scoring is Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy. It was a friendly game against Boca Juniors of Argentina which took place on 10 August 2002 and whose final score was Manchester United 2 Boca Juniors 0.

The Red Cross put up several stands at theaters in the U.S. featuring pamphlets with information on what to do to keep safe during tornados, floods, and blizzards for concerned people who had just viewed the film.

The footage shown on TV of the blizzard storm in the UK is taken from an actual news report in January 2002.

In the film, the son goes to Woodmont Public School in Arlington. Woodmont is an actual name of an Arlington school, but it's an empty building used primarily for field space, voting, and community meetings.

Towards the end of the movie, when the President is giving his "thanking the third world countries" speech, the channel he is giving the speech on is The Weather Channel.

The film was originally scripted with Sam and his friends as 11-year-olds, but director/screenwriter Roland Emmerich realized this made the characters too young, and changed them to high school students.

After seeing Jake Gyllenhaal in October Sky (1999), director Roland Emmerich wanted to work

Continuity

In the briefing scene with the President, Jack dramatically draws an evacuation line across the map of the United States. The line has been clearly redrawn. For the close up shots over Jack's shoulder.

When Jack jumps across the gap at the beginning all he his holding is the sample tubes, when he falls however he suddenly has an ice pick.

When the cleaner looks under the door, the very bright light shining from under the bottom of the door lights up the wall behind him casting a strong silhouette shadow of him on the wall, But it doesn't light him up as bright. Then the shadow raises it's arms before the cleaner does revealing it's not his real shadow.

When Jack and his team finely reach NYC, one of his team falls through a glass skylight roof covering a mall. When Jack look down to his fallen team member he is lying over the hole looking down and in one scene the glass is supporting Jack with a iron support beam. In the next shot the beam is missing.

When we see the last scene with the helicopters flying over we cannot see the ship that had drifted into the city. Even though we can see the snow has gotten deeper the ship's superstructure would still be tall enough to extend above the snow.



Factual errors

It's stated that the temperature that froze the gas lines was -150 degrees F but when the pilot opens the door you can see his breath. At 90 degrees F below zero your breath will freeze and fall to the ground.

When Jack and Dash reach the library where Sam is taking refuge they initially can't find it. When they do discover Sam inside the fireplace is clearly lit. That means that smoke should have been visible from the outside. If the chimney was covered by snow, then smoke would have filled the room where the survivors are, yet there is none.

The penicillin aboard ship was found in solution. If in solution it should have been found frozen and it is clearly liquid when picked up. Normally penicillin is stored as a powder and reconstituted (by adding water or sterile sodium chloride solution) just prior to use. Penicillin in solution is not clear, it is a milky white color.

Hailstones are shown as plain clear chunks of ice. Because of the way that they form, hailstones are opaque balls of concentric layers of accumulated ice (like rings of a tree), or agglomerated lumps of smaller stones.

Several times during the film, including the British helicopter crash, and the penicillin retrieval from the cargo ship, characters are seen touching frozen metal with bare hands, yet the hands do not stick.



Incorrectly regarded as goofs

After the reporter is hit by the flying billboard from the tornado, the billboard flips over and there isn't a body. In the special features on the DVD, an animatic is shown, showing the reporter was left on the road, as opposed to him being stuck on the billboard.

When a big storm threatens land, Hurricane Centers do not send helicopters out into storms so they can investigate them. During a storm, helicopters only rescue people and help bring in storm supplies to the affected areas. In the movie, three British helicopters are flying towards a massive storm over Europe to research and investigate it. Helicopters never fly into storms that big and strong because that weren't designed for that type of weather. They should have instead used Hurricane Hunter airplanes to investigate the storm. But the dialogue clearly states that the three helicopters are not there to research and investigate the storm. They are flying to Balmoral, the British Royal Family's Scottish residence, on a mission to rescue Her Majesty the Queen.

The wolves break free and run away themselves, before Manhattan floods with very high water and freezes over. After it happens the wolves appear alive and running amok. It's possible that they went into a building (there are a vast number of buildings in NYC), to high floor and stayed there until after the streets of Manhattan flooded and froze over.

Judith, the librarian, finds a room in the library and says that the fireplace probably hasn't been used in about a hundred years. If a fireplace hasn't been inspected in a hundred years that would be a major critical violation. A non-inspected chimney could have dirt, trash, or dead animals in it which would have caused the chimney to catch on fire. However when Sam opens the chimney flue, FRESH SNOW falls out, indicating that the chimney is clear of blockages, and if it's letting snow IN, then it can let smoke OUT, and there's no chance of a fire outside the fireplace.

The British announcer of the sports match pronounces the word Celtic as "sell-tick". This is a gross mispronunciation that is made in America. The proper pronunciation is "kell-tick". No British announcer would ever make such an error in pronunciation.