Ororo Monroe is the descendant of an ancient line of African priestesses, all of whom have white hair, blue eyes, and the potential to wield magic.

Storm is an extremely powerful mutant and has demonstrated a plethora of abilities, most of which are facets of her power to control the weather. Storm possesses the psionic ability to control all forms of weather over vast areas. She has been able to control both Earthly and extraterrestrial ecosystems on several occasions. She can control the temperature of the environment, control all forms of precipitation, humidity and moisture (at a molecular level), generate lightning and other electromagnetic atmospheric phenomena, and has demonstrated excellent control over atmospheric pressure. She can incite all forms of meteorological tempests, such as tornadoes, thunderstorms, blizzards, and hurricanes, as well as mist. She can dissipate such weather to form clear skies as well.Her precise control over the atmosphere allows her to create special weather effects. She can create precipitation at higher or lower altitudes than normal, make whirlwinds travel pointing lengthwise in any direction, channel ambient electromagnetism through her body to generate electric blasts, flash freeze objects and people, coalesce atmospheric pollutants into acid rain or toxic fog, and summon wind currents strong enough to support her weight to elevate herself to fly at high altitudes and speeds. Her control is so great that she can even manipulate the air in a person's lungs. She can also control the pressure inside the human inner ear, an ability she uses to cause intense pain. She can also bend light using moisture in the air and her manipulation of mist and fog to become partially transparent, and in later comics, almost completely invisible.Storm has also demonstrated the ability to control natural forces that include cosmic storms, solar wind, ocean currents, and the electromagnetic field. She has demonstrated the ability to separate water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen via electrolysis, allowing her to breathe underwater. While in outer space, she is able to affect and manipulate the interstellar and intergalactic mediums. Storm can alter her visual perceptions so as to see the universe in terms of energy patterns, detecting the flow of kinetic, thermal and electromagnetic energy behind weather phenomena and bending this energy to her will.Storm has shown to be sensitive to the dynamics of the natural world, and her psionic powers over weather are affected by her emotions. One consequence of this connection to nature is that she often suppresses extreme feelings to prevent her emotional state from resulting in violent weather. She has sensed a diseased and dying tree on the X-Mansion grounds, detected objects within various atmospheric mediums—including water, and sensed the incorrect motion of a hurricane in the Northern Hemisphere and the gravitational stress on the tides by the Moon and Sun as well as the distortion of a planet's magnetosphere. Storm's mutant abilities are limited by her willpower and the strength of her body. Sentinels identify Storm as a possible Omega-level mutant