Hurricane season is approaching and the southern states of the US are in for a battering. Hurricane Katrina was a Category 4 hurricane, but Category 5s are predicted, and it’s expected to be the worst season on record.

Set in the near future, where climate change has led to ever-more ferocious storms, this fast-paced drama – from the team behind Supervolcano – twists and turns as a team of scientists wrestle with sexual tensions, inflated egos, past traumas and the moral and scientific dilemmas that come from trying to alter the course of a Superstorm.

Dan Abrams, a charismatic Princeton Professor; Sara Hughes, a sassy English field scientist; Lance Resnick, an arrogant computer modeller; Munish Loomba, a pained meteorologist; Ralf Dewitt, a fresh-faced research assistant; and Holly Zabrieski, a computing genius, are Project Stormshield. Leaders in their field, they have been asked by George Katzenberg, from the Dept of Commerce, to develop technologies that could alter the course and intensity of hurricanes. It sounds like fantasy, but it’s now become a necessity.

In the opening episode, the team are united by the manipulative Katzenberg and set about their work. After months of research, and as hurricane season approaches, they are given clearance to seed a small hurricane; a technique first developed by the discredited Stormfury project in the Sixties.

Sara heads up the experiment – her grandfather was a Stormfury veteran and she’s determined to prove his theories were correct. It’s Sara’s ambition to fly into the hurricane to seed Hurricane Agatha, but, when she develops a cold, Ralf takes her place. However, just as it appears that the seeding has been successful, there’s a dreadful accident.