The Wild Weather Of 'Wicked: For Good' Explained

Broadway's Elphaba On Weather And 'Wicked: For Good'

The second and final part of the "Wicked" film series, fittingly titled “Wicked: For Good,” has been released, giving us a complete trilogy in Oz dating back to “The Wizard of Oz.”

That means it's time to once again take a look at the history of the infamous tornado first seen in "The Wizard of Oz," analyze its modern appearance in “Wicked” and dive into some other weather connections along the Yellow Brick Road and in the Emerald City one last time.

Unraveling Wicked Weather Connections Since “The Wizard of Oz”

Ahead of the release of “Wicked” Part 1, our team of Ozian fanatics sat down with Robert Welch, grandson of A. Arnold "Buddy" Gillespie, the head of special effects for "The Wizard of Oz," and John Fricke, OZ Historian for the Oz Museum.

It was one of the most-read articles on weather.com in 2024 and also one of the most revealing.

Here are some quick facts about the original tornado and more:

• The tornado was built using a 35-foot muslin sock akin to those you would see measuring wind speeds at an airport.
• Dorothy’s house actually fell during her trip from Kansas to Oz, then the film was reversed so that it appeared that the tornado caused it to rise.
• The Wizard proclaims that he was a balloonist with “stratospheric skill” in a Kansas circus fair before his balloon was blown off course.

But was he really blown off course, or was there more to this story? More on that in a clock tick.

Before you move on, you should know that this article is filled with potential spoilers of “Wicked” and “Wicked: For Good.” Don’t threaten me with the flying monkeys if you see something you don’t want to beyond this point. I encouragize you to leave now if you don’t want to be spoiled.

Let’s start with the tornado itself, then chat about the realities of weather modification, environmental impacts from that modification, the Yellow Brick Road and some other munchkin-sized tidbits.

The Tornado: From Kansas To Oz

The tornado in the "Wicked" movies appears to be more of a magical phenomenon than a meteorological one, but we can explore some meteorology and some comparisons back to the original tornado in 1939’s "The Wizard of Oz."

What we know about the tornado: Instead of guessing how strong the tornado was, we asked Elphie herself. Since, you know, those ruby slippers were more interesting than a full storm survey.

Former Broadway Elphaba, Lindsay Heather Pearce, told weather.com producer Christine Cartell that it was an “EF5, major, it lifted a house into the air.”

We know that this tornado was at least rateable as an EF3 in order to lift Dorothy’s house off the ground, but there’s one big caveat: Strictly scientifically speaking, the tornado likely wouldn’t have gotten a stronger rating even if the winds were stronger, because homes in the 1930s weren’t usually bolted down to the ground, nor would have been built to today’s standards.

Of course, a tornado that can teleport homes from one world to another cannot be measured on the Enhanced Fujita scale. Could the theoretical F12 tornado be in play here?

We must talk about the tornado's spin here. The various trailers made it confusing to figure out whether the tornado was a typical tornado that cyclonically rotates — or rotates with a counterclockwise motion — or if it rotated anticyclonically with a clockwise motion.

But in theaters, it became clear that the tornado in "For Good" was a less common anticyclonic tornado with Dorothy's house swinging toward the viewer on the right side of the tornado. Could this be because tornadoes aren't common in Oz and Morrible got it less correct than the GFX artists in the 1930s? Who knows. The large majority of tornadoes in Kansas and the Northern Hemisphere would rotate counterclockwise.

The tornado seen in these clips is a cone or stovepipe tornado as it drops from the sky. This is the most common type of tornado. If you’re wondering, “The Wizard of Oz” tornado was a cone or rope-shaped tornado, the second-most common shape of a tornado, as I discussed a year ago.

Munchkin-sized side note: Did anyone else notice that the heels of Nessa's silver shoes are made up of tornadoes? This is both a call back to the original books and some foreshadowing of what is yet to come. In the original L. Frank Baum book from 1900, the shoes were silver, but they were changed to ruby slippers because of the invention of Technicolor at the time of "The Wizard of Oz." Of course, the twister shape of the shoe's heels is a nod to the tornado that will bring Dorothy to Oz to wear the slippers. And do the curved sides of the shoes look like rainbows?

How the tornado got to Oz: While watching the first trailers presenting the tornado, I immediately noticed that Madame Morrible was largely in color while the grey and brown tornado was shrouded in sepia tones, the color palette of “The Wizard of Oz” before Glinda the Good arrives. Morrible was looking directly into Oz.

It is likely that Oz and Kansas aren’t on the same earthly plane, so how does weather get from the Plains to the Emerald City? Magic.

While not firmly explained in the movies, the tornado acts like a wormhole or portal to bring the tornado and Dorothy to Oz (and ultimately to land on Nessarose).

Munchkin-sized side note: You can see the tornado in emerald on the Universal globe in the opening sequence of "Wicked" and "Wicked: For Good."

From sepia to color: the building of the tornadoes: Obviously, technology has seen some upgrades that would make the Wizard himself turn redder than a Quadling sunrise over the last 85 years.

In the short scenes of the "For Good" tornado, it is clear that they are driven by CGI rather than something practical. The scene shown in the A Storm Is Coming trailer appears to be a mixture of real set, green screen and/or a volumelike large screen.

The tornado in “The Wizard of Oz” was done entirely with practical effects. A muslin sock was twisted along a track with a motor and a crane. The background was made with a projection. While I could not find out how long the CGI took in “Wicked,” it certainly was not the months-long process that A. Arnold “Buddy” Gillespie took in “The Wizard of Oz” to get the tornado just right.

Munchkin-sized side note: The tornado is often called a cyclone in "Wicked: For Good." While not meteorologically incorrect, it is largely outdated terminology. Hurricanes, tornadoes and winter storms are all kinds of cyclones, but the use of cyclones was used broadly in the 1800s and early 1900s. It was used by L. Frank Baum to describe the tornado as well.

The Environmental Destruction Of Oz

In "Wicked," the wizard introduces his idea to expand a road throughout Oz to connect the countries of Oz, but realistically, the Yellow Brick Road is being built to insert the Wizard’s influence over more of Oz. Some previous literature suggests this is also being done in order to harvest rubies from all over the land. This is where Dorothy gets the rubies in her slippers.

We’ve seen that the Emerald City has been threatening regions of Oz already, as Animals are being pushed out of the city and losing their ability to speak. Dr. Dillamond, the speaking goat professor, has been told that he is no longer able to teach at Shiz University. The government of Oz uses fear to further chase out more Animals.

Elphaba tries to right this wrong by giving the monkeys that serve as the Emerald Guard a way to get away from the Wizard, but instead accidentally leans into the Wizard's plan to gather spies over Oz and gives the monkeys wings in the most horrific fashion. It is noteworthy that “Chistery,” the monkey closest to the Wizard, never speaks. The Wizard's first victim?

In "Wicked: For Good," we see Ozians building the all-too-famous Yellow Brick Road using large rhinocerous-type animals to do it.

The building of the Yellow Brick Road throughout Oz is likely harming more Animals and pushing all types of Ozian species out of Oz.

This is similar to what is happening across the United States and the world as cities and road networks expand. Elphaba does a better job at unleashing the Animals and allowing them to return to their natural habitat by the end of the movies than most of us will do in the real world.

Weather Modification And Its Realities

If you're a fan of the movies or the Broadway plays, you are likely very familiar with Madame Morrible. She is a magician with a specialty in weather. In other words, she can control the weather.

While we don’t quite have any Madame Morribles on Earth, limited weather modification is a factual thing that happens on Earth. You’ve likely heard of cloud seeding.

Scientists, farmers and event planners often try to modify — to add or subtract — how much rain or snow falls during an event. This is most commonly done with silver iodide. The process has been used for the better part of the last century.

In most cases, the compound is released from planes or ground-based cannons.

Some of the purposes of cloud seeding:

• To improve rainfall rates in drought-stricken areas (Here’s one recent example)
• To reduce hail damage in metropolitan areas by making thunderstorms drop their precipitation early
• To reduce rainfall rates in flooded areas or for events by making clouds rain before they reach those areas

Unlike Morrible, this Earthly cloud seeding does not create clouds (or tornadoes) but, in reality, changes the behavior of clouds that already exist. There is still a conversation ongoing in the scientific community about whether seeding truly works.

More on Madame Morrible in a clock tick ...

Messages In The Clouds

Let's for a second focus on the clouds themselves.

In "For Good," Elphaba punches holes in the clouds to say “OUR WIZARD LIES” as a warning to the Ozians.

While hole punch clouds, otherwise known as fallstreak holes, are a real thing, their appearance over Oz is hilariously bad.

In the real world, these holes are often caused by planes flying through flat, high clouds called cirrus clouds. The planes disrupt the cloud’s structure and cause particles to fall toward the ground. They are singular holes that are oblong, and you will often see falling ice particles in the middle.

In the movie adaptation of this phenomenon, Elphie punches each letter one by one.

This was a direct callback to the original “Wizard of Oz.”

In the original movie, the Wicked Witch of the West paints “Surrender Dorothy” in the sky over the Emerald City residents using smoke to regain Dorothy’s ruby slippers, which were originally her sister’s, the Wicked Witch of the East (Nessarose).

Munchkin-sized side note: The original message was “Surrender Dorothy Or Die!” and it was signed WWW, or Wicked Witch of the West. The last few words were cut in the final cut of “The Wizard of Oz,” but a recent revival of the movie at The Sphere in Las Vegas brought the whole phrase back.

MORR-ible Connections To The Weather

Some of Morrible’s other connections to weather:

1. Has anyone noticed that her hair looks like a wispy cumulus cloud? "Wicked” makeup designer Frances Hannon told IndieWire that this was intentional: "That sort of pure, pure white of the clouds and the lifting and the twists [in her hair], like the clouds floating through the sky, it gave her a great structure with her costume design.”
2. Morrible’s nails were also white to match this cloud theme. In some of the posters and trailers, her nails turn purple or black with the dreadful twist in the weather.
3. Michelle Yeoh, Madame Morrible herself, has made it clear that she thinks her character's name, flipped over vertically, starts with WW – a hint toward her also being a Wicked Witch. If you think about it, Elphaba’s hat, flipped over, is also the shape of a tornado.

At the beginning of this article, I suggested there might be another reason the Wizard of Oz got to Oz. Here’s my theory:

• Remember that Madame Morrible is thought to be native to the land of Oz. In other words, she was there long before the Wizard. (His actual name is Oscar Zoroaster Diggs, by the way.)

• We’ve learned over the course of various media and canons that Morrible is the biggest bad.

• Who’s to say that Morrible didn’t bring the Wizard to Oz in his balloon on a large gust of wind? We now know she can control the weather, or at least magic, on Earth. She obviously brought the balloon to Shiz University, which invited Elphaba to the Emerald City in "Wicked."
• Did she want Ozma out of power? That’s a little too much to get into for this article. Let me know what you think in the comments.
• Maybe we'll get a Morrible prequel to "Wicked?" Please...

Munchkin-sized side note: Anyone notice the name of the secret military force used by the wizard and Morrible to get Elphaba back? The Gale Force. This is the second time a nod to the weather has been used as a name. The other? Dorothy Gale.

Jonathan Belles has been a digital meteorologist for weather.com for 9 years and also assists in the production of videos for The Weather Channel en español. His favorite weather is tropical weather, but also enjoys covering high-impact weather and news stories and winter storms. He's a two-time graduate of Florida State University and a proud graduate of St. Petersburg College.