When a storm is brewing, you can smell it coming, hear the rumbling from the earth, feel the ferocious winds approaching, says Richard Armitage, lead actor of "Into the Storm."

"What I loved about what [director] Steve [Quale] did was he would try the practical, like the tree falling and the roof being ripped off of the school. They looked good on the lens, but not quite good enough, so Steve would always push it further and enhance it with some digital work," Armitage told Latin Post. "You get a sense of immediate, real kind of visceral things that are happening," said the actor, who portrays Thorin Oakenshield in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" and "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug."

Quale, who is known for this work on "Final Destination 5," (2011) "Avatar" (2009) and "Titanic" (1997), and producer Todd Garner ("Zookeeper," "Knight and Day") put Armitage's depiction to the test in his latest film, a nail-biting tornado thriller, "Into the Storm," which hits theaters nationwide on Friday, Aug. 8.

Like a twister, the CGI and practical effects intertwine, bringing to life one of Mother Nature's most captivating yet lethal secret weapons.

The difference a day makes is one of the many eye-opening realizations that shakes the fictional town of Silverton, which is "ravaged by an unprecedented onslaught of tornadoes." Overpowered by these natural forces of "erratic and deadly cyclones," storm trackers predict the worst is yet to come. Yet while most seek shelter, other daredevil thrill-seekers and meteorology-loving storm seekers run towards the vortex, trying to nab that once-in-a-lifetime shot.

While on set in Michigan, Quale had to recreate the natural elements of a tornado with man-made torrential rain, fierce winds created by wind machines and hail the size of golf balls made with real ice.

Initially, Quale was hesitant at the idea of having a mile-wide tornado and thought it might be too exaggerated, but as nature would have it, he learned of a real-life tornado that was 2.6 miles wide.

"It's stranger than fiction, a lot of these storms," Sarah Wayne Callies ("The Walking Dead") told Latin Post.

There is also a "fire-nado" featured in the film, where a combination of CGI and harnesses were used to drag and propel actor Jeremy Sumpter ("Soul Surfer," TV's "Friday Night Lights") 50 to 60 feet in the air.

"I did a lot of wire work. ... I did Peter Pan when I was a kid," Sumpter told Latin Post.

Similar to his work in "Titanic," most of Quale's cast was wet during the filming of "Into the Storm."

Being pelted by rain and wind and the "relentless being cold and wet," Armitage said, added to the intensity of the filming. "We had a good facial every day," he joked.

In addition to Armitage, Callies and Sumpter, the cast of "Into the Storm" includes Matt Walsh ("Ted"), Alycia Debnam-Carey ("Where the Devil Hides"), Arlen Escarpeta ("Final Destination 5"), Nathan Kress (TV's "iCarly"), Max Deacon ("Flashbacks of a Fool"), Jon Reep ("Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay") and Kyle Davis ("American Horror Story," and "Men of a Certain Age").

Armitage, who is currently starring in "The Crucible" in London, plays "a seemingly ordinary guy and a conservative vice principal from Oklahoma" named Gary Morris who has two sons, Donnie and Trey, (played by Deacon and Cress), who feel lost and conflicted after their mother's death. As the storm is brewing and graduation day is underway, Donnie gets caught in the storm.

"In the course of a day, this normal guy has to draw within himself a certain heroism to survive and to rescue his kid. He's living on a moment-to-moment basis. ... And I think that is something that I relate to and hope that, in that event, I might find those qualities in myself," Armitage said.

"I just give them an environment that mixes the practical with the digital to give them something to work off of," Quale told Latin Post. "A big CG moment without a point of view from the characters would just be spectacle rather than emotional."

In the film, die-hard, professional storm chaser Pete Moore (played by Walsh), experiences an emotional, life-altering moment when he ventures into the eye of the storm. At the mercy of the tornado, he experiences the beauty, and the brief, celestial serenity and ferocity of the natural disaster.

"I think that is a credit to Steve. Obviously, not only is he a technical wizard; he also cared about the human story," Walsh told Latin Post.

"It's like the theater, it's your imaginative work. ... You need to create a world as you're looking at it. In a way that's how a lot of us started being actors. That's a pretty cool thing to get back to you," Callies said. "Can I scare the pants off myself again? That's good fun!"

Callies, who plays Allison Stone, a storm chaser and meteorologist, reached out to a professor at the University of Michigan in the climatology and meteorology department to further understand the science and the impact behind tornadoes.

"Part of the journey of this movie to me was just the absolute beauty of these storms," she said. "They're dangerous and devastating, but there's something like the eye of Medusa to them. You need to go, you need to run, but you almost can't tear your eyes away from them."

Check out the official trailer for "Into the Storm," which hits theaters nationwide on Friday, Aug. 8.