So the other chasers were supposed to be bad guys?

Jonas and his crew were trying to take credit off of Bill and Jo's work with their knock off version of "Dorothy".

Sometimes you want to be seen in style in a career, but not for pure show. Jonas was self-absorbed and obsessed with his own social status way too much and probably had a big hand in setting up all that equipment personally. He had no interest in understanding the passion behind the job and only came aboard for a big paycheck and only desired to help others for the sake of his own recognition, not out of a sincere desire to actually help others or create his own future.

Jonas clearly was a bit of a fraud and worked his way to the top without putting much real effort into it, otherwise he would have known that Bill and Eddie were speaking common sense and would have made an exception. He probably only had superficial knowledge of how tornadoes worked and didn't understand the deeper nature of them, which is precisely why he ended up getting himself and Eddie killed. He also stole Bill and Jo's idea, clearly showing he lacks the intelligence to think of his own creations or plans and instead thrives off the ideas of others. He was really the only bad guy in end, rather than the entire team.

Actually, there were two sets of bad guys in this film: Jonas the asshole and his brigade, and the tornadoes. It seems poetic that one was killed by the other.

Also, did you forgot that Jonas stole Bill's design for Dorothy and was trying to pass it off as his idea? That's pretty evil in my book. Not to mention he was doing it for the fame and money, not to save lives.

Noble activities like storm-chasing or fighting for a cause always go to hell in a handbasket when the corporations get involved and start promoting it like a product. This film is one of many examples of why corporations should not get involved in stuff like this. It's like politicians or the feds ruining police cases; all they do is make things worse and more people get hurt.

They were rivals and not bad buys; antagonists rather than villains.

And that's the difference between an antagonist and a genuine villain, an antagonist may stand between the protagonist and their goal, but because of reasonable or even noble goals. There was nothing really wrong with the other storm-chasing team, we're just meant to like the protagonist team better.

They were corporate and therefore likely to use their tornado knowledge for profit and evil.

For arguments about how Jonas "stole" Bill's design, look. It doesn't take a Ph.D in Meteorology with a focus on severe weather to realize "Hey, let's build a thing and drop it into the path of a tornado". In the 1970's a device similar in concept, in fact it was the inspiration for Dorothy, TOTO, was built and there were attempts to deploy it with the same aim as Dorothy.

So it's kind of a stretch for Bill to be pissed off about the idea. It's not an original thought, they built one well before Bill was getting drunk and chucking whiskey at a tornado.

"What's Jonas doing here?"

Gee, I don't know Bill. You're a stormchaser, Jo's a stormchaser, you even tell Melissa that Jonas was part of the team at one point. You KNOW it's going to be a good day for storm chasing, "Day like today's it's to be expected. She forgets EVERYTHING except her work", you're in the middle of Oklahoma in June. Why WOULDN'T Jonas be chasing tornadoes?

Ok, so "He's got a lot of high tech gadgets, but he's got no instincts." NOT HIGH TECH GADGETS! That BASTARD! Let's talk to Jo about how the Doppler radar is broken again, and how they're running out of grant money. Meanwhile, Jonas has his corporate sponsors and a fleet of vehicles, probably well maintained. And let's face it - the private sector is a lot more cutthroat than working for the University of Oklahoma. They wouldn't be giving Jonas that kind of money if he couldn't deliver on it.

So it's basically just nonsense to make a non-bad guy into an actual bad guy. And yeah, it is a jerk move when they just drive past after the first tornado, but clearly they're not injured, clearly assistance is already there with Jo's team.

The only thing he does that's really....well not even BAD per se, is turning the CB off right as the F5 shifts it's tracks. And they were screwed already. It's a mile wide tornado, it was already shifting. Nothing could be done short of him missing his alarm clock that morning.

At the most, Jonas is a jerk.

Someone loves capitalism a bit too much...