The driving motivation behind the Virtual Storm is to provide students with a hands-on means to learning about severe weather. Hands-on experiences are considered an important teaching method. The Virtual Storm addresses the lack of hands-on experience in severe weather education through the use of computer graphics and virtual reality technology.;Formal user studies were used to determine the effectiveness of the Virtual Storm as a teaching tool. The study results did not show a measurable benefit of using the Virtual Storm. However, the user tests may not have captured the true value of the Virtual Storm since they focused on short-term retention, and the strengths of hands-on experience are generally thought to improve long-term retention rather than short-term recall. The level of engagement demonstrated by the participants suggests that the tool is still a useful compliment to the lecture.