I’ll confess: I’ve used weather as a plot device more times than I care to admit. Need a car run off the road? Make it rain. Need your characters trapped and helpless? Bring on the snow. I once set a Quinn & Costa thriller in Patagonia, Arizona, over Memorial Day weekend—hot, dusty, and miserable. The mining town mattered to the story. The weather was just window dressing. Article continues after advertisement But sometimes weather isn’t background. Sometimes it’s a full-blooded character, raw and real.