Weather in The Wizard of Oz
1939’s The Wizard of Oz is a story of a young girl named Dorothy from Kansas who goes on a journey after her house is lifted into the air by a tornado and she lands in the magical land of Oz. At the end of the film we find out that in reality Dorothy has just suffered what is most likely a concussion and was actually just unconscious the whole time! Because this is an page based on weather, we’re going to focus more on the tornado and less on the magical concussion world.
While we aren’t given any location more specific than Kansas, that’s all we really need to know as far as how likely a tornado hitting Dorothy’s house actually is. (Spoiler: It’s pretty likely). According to ustornadoes.com, Kansas is the second highest state in annual tornadoes. From 1991-2015, Kansas averaged 92.4 tornadoes a year, second only to Texas with an average of 146.7. Surprisingly, Oklahoma which is notorious for its tornadoes and sits between Kansas and Texas placed third with an average of 64.5.
While we aren’t given any location more specific than Kansas, that’s all we really need to know as far as how likely a tornado hitting Dorothy’s house actually is. (Spoiler: It’s pretty likely). According to ustornadoes.com, Kansas is the second highest state in annual tornadoes. From 1991-2015, Kansas averaged 92.4 tornadoes a year, second only to Texas with an average of 146.7. Surprisingly, Oklahoma which is notorious for its tornadoes and sits between Kansas and Texas placed third with an average of 64.5.
This area of the Midwest starting in Texas and stretching up as far north as North Dakota (or sometimes Canada depending on who you ask) is known as “Tornado Alley” a term coined in 1952 by U.S. Air Force meteorologists Major Ernest J. Fawbush and Captain Robert C. Miller who used the term as the title for their research project about severe weather in the area. (Tornado Alley.)
So we know that Kansas is the perfect location for a tornado to occur but let’s take a look at what exactly a tornado is and how it forms. A tornado is a rapidly rotating column of air that forms between solid land and a cumulonimbus cloud (usually, it could form from other types of cloud). So while this rotating column of air seems similar to a hurricane, they're actually very different. According to National Geographic’s interview with Harold Brooks, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations research meteorologist, most tornadoes only last about 10 minutes, but large tornadoes can stick around for half an hour, have wind speeds of 300 miles per hour, be 2 miles wide, and cover dozens of miles in its short lifespan. We’ll be focusing on these big tornadoes as the one in The Wizard of Oz was certainly a large, powerful tornado.
The most powerful tornadoes form out of super-cell thunderstorms. The ingredients for a normal thunderstorm are: adequate moisture in the air, unstable air, and a lifting mechanism. (Source: aviation professors drilling it into my head). However, a super-cell storm needs a little more than that, add in high winds that change strength and direction with height and you’ve got a rotating, powerful storm high in the atmosphere. Approximately 30% of super-cell thunderstorms will form tornadoes due to the air descending from the super-cell causing rotation near the ground. Scientists are still not completely sure why some thunderstorms form tornadoes and some don’t but they believe that “strong changes in winds in the first kilometer of the atmosphere and high relative humidity are important for the formation of tornadoes. There also needs to be a downdraft in just the right part of the storm.” (National Geographic). Interestingly, researchers are also unsure exactly how a tornado dissipates. It’s agreed that eventually the air in the tornado gets too cold and cuts off the inflow of new air but they are unsure of the specific details.
I believe that the tornado in The Wizard of Oz is portrayed rather realistically. In reality the twister would’ve ripped Dorothy’s house to shreds rather than carrying it mostly intact to Oz but because this is all a part of Dorothy’s concussion dream we’ll leave that part out. The location and the fact that it appears to be late summer or early autumn both support the likelihood of a tornado coming Dorothy’s way. Because tornadoes usually only last around 10 minutes, it makes sense that everyone is by her side waiting for her to wake up. Hopefully she was only out for a few minutes or she might have some serious brain damage. Also slightly related to weather but mostly unrelated is that the wicked witch of the west appears as a tornado at one point, and the weather in Oz is always perfect except when she's around.
Sources
Howard, B. C. (2016, August 02). How Tornadoes Form and Why They're so Unpredictable. Retrieved October 10, 2017, from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/05/150511-tornadoes-storms-midwest-weather-science/
Livingston, I. (2017, January 28). Annual and monthly tornado averages for each state (maps). Retrieved October 10, 2017, from http://www.ustornadoes.com/2016/04/06/annual-and-monthly-tornado-averages-across-the-united-states/
Tornado Alley. (n.d.). Retrieved October 10, 2017, from https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-information/extreme-events/us-tornado-climatology/tornado-alley
Livingston, I. (2017, January 28). Annual and monthly tornado averages for each state (maps). Retrieved October 10, 2017, from http://www.ustornadoes.com/2016/04/06/annual-and-monthly-tornado-averages-across-the-united-states/
Tornado Alley. (n.d.). Retrieved October 10, 2017, from https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-information/extreme-events/us-tornado-climatology/tornado-alley