Never-ending storms make for good plot twists. Could they plague Earth?

Never-ending storms make for good plot twists. Could they plague Earth? Skip to content Subscribe today Every print subscription comes with full digital access Subscribe Now By Aaron Tremper May 18, 2026 at 9:00 am Share this: Share Share via email (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Share on X (Opens in new window) X Print (Opens in new window) Print Weather forecasts can get extreme in the land of Hyrule, in the Nintendo series The Legend of Zelda . A downpour in the coastal province of Faron, for instance, prevents Link, the game’s hero, from reaching Calora Lake. And constant lightning and rain threaten the skybound Thunderhead Isles. These storms end only once Link completes a series of quests. The threat of never-ending storms makes for moody gameplay. But real storms “can’t last forever,” says Stephanie Spera, a physical geographer at the University of Richmond in Virginia. Storms result from imbalances between moisture and temperature. Though violent at times, thunderstorms help redistribute heat, moisture and electrical charges. “The whole purpose of anything in weather is to get the atmosphere back in balance,” says meteorologist Chris Vagasky of the Wisconsin Environmental Mesonet, a statewide network of weather stations. To fuel constant thunderstorms, such imbalances would have to persist. But Earth’s atmospheric physics ensures that even the strongest storms eventually fade away. Constant thunderstorms would need ongoing supplies of storm ingredients, Vagasky says. For one, you’d need a “persistent conveyor belt of warm, moist air.” And heat, maybe 24-hour sunlight. As rising warm air condenses into cloud-forming droplets, then cooling rain and downward winds (which dissipate storms on Earth), the cycling would refuel the storm. Even if a storm could sustain its internal energy, it couldn’t stay stationary forever, because Earth’s atmosphere is in constant motion. Lik