Program History
Storm Stories launched on 6 January 2003 as the first true serial long-form program on The Weather Channel. The groundwork for these long-form programs was laid by Atmospheres, a weekly long-form program that aired from 2000 to 2003 and signaled the beginning of a change in paradigm at The Weather Channel. Storm Stories, in turn, was the predecessor to a variety of long-form programs on The Weather Channel, including It Could Happen Tomorrow (2006), Epic Conditions (2007), and When Weather Changed History (2008).
The idea to for series programming and the aspiration for creating a signature series was proposed to the executive team in 1990 by Jim Alexander (The Weather Channel VP Consumer & Strategic Research). Viewer reactions (development research) to Atmospheres, along with existing weather documentaries, influenced the concepts considered. Content development research with viewers demonstrated the potential for a successful series combining the visual evidence of nature's destructive power and the first hand accounts of the experience and the impact on individual lives. Market segmentation research was used to judge the potential audience for the programs along with the impact on viewers who counted on The Weather Channel for watching the weather across the country.
Formerly, Storm Stories featured commercial breaks with the channel's signature Local on the 8s localized forecast. Since 15 December 2005, an L-bar/corner forecast has appeared for those with the IntelliStar, and a satellite L-bar forecast airs for those with Weather Stars that do not support the L-bar (the Weather Star XL and older models) or those without Weather Stars.
In some episodes, the old TWC logo (1996-2005) was used during the question at the end, which is most difficult to stretch the current TWC logo on the lower display line of the Weather Star XL or IntelliStar, and after the credits, they used the old 2003 graphic of The Weather Channel logo before a one-minute Local Forecast. This graphic was removed late in the run. For episodes currently on The Weather Channel On-Demand, the current TWC logo surrounded by black is shown during these question segments to cover the old logo.
Some of the episodes included aircraft crashes caused by weather including Air France Flight 358, American Airlines Flight 1420 and US Airways Flight 1016.
In Mid-2007, Storm Stories got a brand new look on its intro; also, the new episodes now contain computer animated graphics showing the weather situation, and the ending question has also changed its format. In October 2007, the channel moved the show to 2-3 p.m. ET. However, after the network began its transition to HD programming on June 2, 2008, the series no longer aired on the network.
The show returned to TWC on February 22, 2009 with 26 all-new episodes. Episodes of the series have been released on DVD.
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