Bill Brody, Alec Baldwin and his wife Quinn Brody, Anne Heche, are legendary storm chasers. When they have a child, William, Daniel Diemer, Quinn decides to stay home and monitor the weather while Bill heads out on the chase. During a storm chase, Quinn pleads with Bill to get out of the bear's cage as the system explodes. However he ignores her and he and two college students are killed by the tornado.
Several years later, Quinn is a house cleaner living in Florida assisted by the teenage William. William has been friends for years with Harper, Jordan Kristine Seamón, who hopes to be his girlfriend. William is drawn to storm chasing, which Quinn tries to discourage. One day he goes to the roof of his high school during a thunderstorm with an instrument invented by his parents that is supposed to find tornadoes by a sound frequency, and is expelled. After receiving his parents' chase log in the mail from his dad's former chase partner Roy Cameron, Skeet Ulrich who was like an uncle to William, William hitchhikes to Texas to the return address on the envelope. When he meets Roy, Roy at first wants to send him home, but agrees to let him tag along on a chase.
William finds out Roy is an employee of Brody Storm Chase Tours, operated by the acerbic Zane Rogers, Alec Baldwin who uses the Brody name to lure clients into tours. He grudgingly allows William along with the other "tourists" and is shown to be a risk-taker. When they are near a super cell, he tells Roy to pull off the road into a muddy field where they witness a tornado forming in the distance. However, another part of the storm forms right over them and they take shelter in the van which is stuck in the mud as it is pelted with large hail. The damage to the van forces Roy to head to a garage a couple hours away to retrieve their back-up vehicle. Meanwhile Quinn has contacted Roy as she figures William is with him. She and Harper head west in Harper's car to track him down.
When Roy returns with the back-up van, he and Zane are forced to leave William behind at a gas station when a super cell forms nearby. However, a tornado forms right over the gas station and William rides it out in a phone booth. When the press shows up to interview William, Zane attempts to use the spotlight to promote his storm chasing tour, causing Roy to punch him and then quit. Roy and William head to a warehouse where William shows Roy the tornado frequency instrument, while Roy shows him his dad's original storm chasing vehicle.
The next morning as many chase crews congregate at a diner, Roy tells William that his mom is coming to get him and he is to stay there and wait for her. When Roy leaves the table, William sneaks out and joins Zane and his latest storm tourists. They head to an area where a large super cell is forming, and when Quinn and Harper arrive at the diner they head after them with Roy. Zane stops the van on a hill and when William walks a distance away from the van, the tornado frequency instrument reveals a tornado bearing down on them. With the van stuck in the mud, William who barely knows how to drive, drives the van in reverse as Zane pushes it out of the mud and is subsequently sucked into the tornado. Continuing to drive in reverse, William narrowly escapes the tornado and just misses hitting the vehicle containing Roy, Quinn and Harper by turning the van's emergency lights on.
Running low on gas and with another large tornado heading towards them, Roy, Harper, Quinn, William and the storm tourists head for shelter in a nearby town. While others head for the underground shelter, William goes back to the van to retrieve his father's chase log. Quinn, Roy and Harper go after him and are cut off from the shelter by the approaching tornado. They dive into a swimming pool and survive underwater despite the van being tossed into the pool.
The next morning William and Harper confirm their romantic feelings for each other and Quinn tells William how proud his father would be as the van is fished out of the pool.
