The book takes place before and after Donald Trump becomes president of the United States and depicts Lizzie's family life and her concerns about climate change.

[1] The novel grew out of conversations between Offill and novelist Lydia Millet concerning the potential impacts of climate change.

[1] Works including Amitav Ghosh's The Great Derangement and Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower also influenced the writing and content of the novel.

Likening the fragmented structure to Dalí's animal sketches, Jamison suggests that the "whittled narrative bursts" that Offill employs are the ideal narrative form to convey the juxtaposition of the recognizable domestic anxieties with the incomprehensibly large anxieties of global climate change.

The two novels share similar composition, separated into brief, fragmentary anecdotes and moments drawn from the lives of their protagonists.

[14] Derbyshire also expressed his belief that a comment by author Donald Barthelme about Speedboat — that it "glimpses into the special oddities and new terrors of contemporary life" — applied to Weather as well.

[14] Derbyshire also noted that the novel, despite its focus on climate change and civilizational collapse, has moments of humor, like Offill's previous work, Dept.

[16][17] Jake Cline, in his review of Weather for The Philadelphia Inquirer, praised Offill's utilization of short paragraphs and anecdotes, writing: "None of this hopscotching feels random.