The syndicated version includes co-branding opportunities for stations to place, within the program, their local weather anchors, who are usually shown discussing the topic of the episode, and current news.

In 2009, NBCUniversal (which previously owned TWC until 2018) announced that it would begin handling sales of all of the national ads on Litton's syndicated shows, including Storm Stories.

The groundwork for Storm Stories 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.

The idea of creating a signature series was proposed to the executive team in 1990 by Jim Alexander (The Weather Channel VP Consumer & Strategic Research).

Content development research with viewers demonstrated the potential for a successful series combining visual evidence of nature's destructive power and first-hand accounts of the experience and its 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 TWC for information about weather across the United States.

TWC stopped airing the series when the channel began its transition to HD programming on June 2, 2008, but the show returned on February 22, 2009, with 26 new episodes.