Storm has the psionic ability to control the weather over limited areas. She can fly at subsonic speeds by creating winds strong enough to support her weight. Storm has limited immunity to extreme heat and cold. However, her psionic powers over the weather is affected by her emotions; hence, if she does not maintain control of her emotions, a fit of rage might induce a destructive storm.

Ororo Munroe was a goddess. Following the rise of Apocalypse, the continent of Africa was in disarray. Storm rose up and declared herself the Windrider. She carved out a small area of Africa as her own and intended to keep it safe from the strife of the war between humans and mutants. Unfortunately this just drew attention to her and her people. Apocalypse attacked the Windrider's new nation and brought it to its knees. He captured her, had her branded and put her in the care of Sinister and the Dark Beast, instructing them to make her into a warrior of Apocalypse. He named her Storm.

Storm recieved her facial tattoo from her time as Apocalypse's captive. In the Dark Beast's labs, she was tortured and subjected to the mind-warping telepathy of the Shadow King. Able to fight off his telepathy, her struggle summoned a storm of such great strength that power across Apocalypse's lands was knocked out. During this outage, a sympathetic Prelate Scott Summers helped her escape. After being liberated, she would become romantically involved with Forge before she would meet her true love in Europe when she was confronted by Quicksilver, who she initially assumed was an operative of Apocalypse. Quicksilver eventually earned her trust and asked her to join the X-Men. With the X-Men, Ororo kept the name Storm to remind her of what she had been through. She and Quicksilver would eventually become more than friends.

Ororo was one of a handful of X-Men selected to aid the Sentinels in the Great Evacuation of North America. The armada of androids provided by the Human High Council needed to arrive undetected at the departure site in Maine and Storm provided with those means, creating a lightning storm to take out one of Apocalypse's defense monitoring tower off the coast of Newfoundland. When she arrvied at Sentinel's destination, she found they had been sabotaged by the Brotherhood who had reprogrammed the Sentinels to attack the X-Men.

The Brotherhood was quickly disposed of, but the Horseman responsible for their dispatch, the mutant known as Abyss, remained at large. The Banshee discovered Abyss holding a child hostage, requesting the presence of Quicksilver, head of the X-Men squad in Maine, first son of Magneto, and Storm's companion. Quicksilver obliged and together with Storm was able to rescue the child and defeat Abyss for the time being. After the successful Sentinel Evacuation, the X-Men returned to their home in Westchester to discover that Magneto and the stranger Bishop had been abducted by Apocalypse. Deciding that Bishop was more important to their plans than his missing father, Quicksilver took Storm and Banshee with him to Quebec to rescue the time displaced mutant.

Bishop was being held at the Temple of the Madri, home to Apocalypse's army of inexhaustable duplicates. Though Storm was able to infiltrate the Temple and locate Bishop, she was unable to successfully escape with him. The two were cornered by the Madri when they suddenly stopped, their eyes lifeless as if their bodies were no more than mere empty shells. Jamie Madrox, the original body from whence the replicas spawned, sacrificed his life to shut down the Madri and spare Storm and Bishop. After Storm and Quicksilver rescued Bishop, the X-Men were be posed to take Apocalypse's Citadel by force.

Since then, Storm and Quicksilver have furthered their relationship while continuing to fight for Magneto's dream. Over time, Storm seemed to become a more prominent player for the X-Men. She was constantly active, appearing in many X-Men missions, and ven lead the the small team assembled for Operation First Strike, their inaugural mutant raid which introduced them to the American public as part of a new directive to use mutants to hunt renegade mutants.