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...I'd just like to say that Tolkien is absolutley brilliant in creating milieu. His choice of weather, setting, and so on manipulate the emotion and overall "feel" of the scene.
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I concur. It gives the scenes so much depth and mood; when reading the books the first time, I could just see the thunderheads following the Rohirrim up to Helm's Deep. It gave me chills. Another bit I noticed was when Frodo and Sam are trying to navigate the Emyn Muil:
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The hobbits now stood on the brink of a tall cliff, bare and bleak, its feet wrapped in mist; and behind them rose the broken highlands crowned with drifting cloud. A chill wind blew from the East.
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Then, trying to climb down the gully:
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The hurrying darkness, now gathering great speed, rushed up from the East and swallowed the sky. There was a dry splitting crack of thunder right overhead. Searing lightning smote down into the hills.
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And this, unless I'm much mistaken, is the same storm that makes its way to Helm's Deep later on.
In regard to Imladris' comment earlier, I would like to offer a word of agreement. Weather connections with stories is very prevelent; and an excellent way to inject feeling into a scene. If people read carefully enough, they can catch a whiff of future events in how the author sets the weather of a scene.
For example, there is a scene in a story I'm writing at the moment that illustrates this fact. In the scene, my main character is being healed after a long trial and illness. In most cases, this would call for a hopeful sort of mood, but I chose to present it with a more melancholy feel: the sky is overcast and dreary and the scene ends with rain. This does not neccessarily reflect the external workings of the scene, more the internal effects of what has happened and the repercussions thereof. The character is saved from her primary dilemma, but she is not free (or completed healed) of the effects of it, and it will continue to haunt her. The setting shows this.
Abedithon le,
~*~Aranel~*~