In "The Storm", “Local Color” refers to the specific details of the story that might help the reader develop a better sense of the setting. Because we know that this short story takes place in Louisiana, local color would include anything that provides nuanced description of the places in which Chopin’s characters are located, helping to reveal more about their environment and culture. One specific example of this occurs when Calixta impatiently looks out of her window to assess the raging storm. As she watched,

A bolt struck a tall chinaberry tree at the edge of the field.

This small piece of information tells us much about Calixta’s world and where she lives. For her to be able to see vegetation in a space as far off as a field indicates that she must live out in the countryside and own a sizeable portion of land. Perhaps she lived in a manor home. This possibility is made more real in the early parts of chapter II, when Calixta sees Alcee on her small front gallery (implying that she lives in a home large enough to support a small gallery). All of these minor details provide a glimpse into the life and material comforts of a well-to-do southern household. Thus, as local color, they help illustrate everyday life in Louisiana more generally, at least in regard to the country-dwelling middle class.

Another example of local color is conveyed in the final two chapters (IV and V). Alcee writes a letter to his wife, Clarisse, telling her that he is doing well and encouraging her to stay at Biloxi if it is agreeable to her constitution. On the one hand, the conversation between the two exemplifies the dynamics of a typical southern marriage, particularly regarding the cares and concerns married couples would have of each other. On the other hand, the fact that these two are corresponding via missives, and not via some other, more direct method, gives the reader a better sense of time and place. Antebellum Louisiana is of slow-pace and reminiscence. In the absence of modern technologies like telephones (or even telegraphs), lovers must hold on to the memory of one another through letters alone. The emotional and physical distance that is conveyed through the use of letter-writing in Chopin’s story may even help explain Alcee’s willingness to have an affair in the first place. A man separated from his wife and children for so long, with so many distractions acting to erode his memory of them, may find it easier to fall into the arms of another woman, even for a moment, as a result.

Kate Chopin was very interested in and knowledgeable about the various ethnicities of Louisiana, including its Creole and Acadian cultures. Kate Chopin's mother and husband, in fact, were from prominent French Creole families.

In "The Storm," Calixta and Bobinot are Acadians. In a purge of Acadians from the Canadian Maritimes during the "Great Expulsion" of 1755–64, many were sent to France; later, many emigrated to Louisiana, where their culture evolved into the Cajun culture. Alcee and his wife are Creoles. Though both Acadians (Cajuns) and Creoles descend from the French, they typically did not mix, and Acadians were considered to be the social inferiors of the Creoles.

Calixta and Alcee's affair is significant not just because each is married to another person, but also because the two of them are of separate racial and social groups. So, besides being set in Louisiana, the story includes an element of race- mixing that was unique to Louisiana, placing it in the local color movement.

There are a number of details in the story that provide "local color" or specific details and elements that reflect the actual place setting (Louisiana) and the people who live there. The fact that the clothes are hung on the porch to dry, specifically Bobinot's Sunday clothes, lets us know something about marriage roles and the importance of dressing well on Sunday's in this town. The general store itself where Bobinot and Bibi wait out the storm gives an air of local flavor to the piece. Look at the details that are given there. The purchase of the shrimps, for instance, as well as the use of dialect that is localized in its nature in the following passage:

"I brought you some shrimps, Calixta," offered Bobinôt, hauling the can from his ample side pocket and laying it on the table.

"Shrimps! Oh, Bobinôt! you too good fo' anything!" and she gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek that resounded, "J'vous réponds, we'll have a feas' to-night! umph-umph!

The use of regionalized dialect shows both the local "slang" as well as the French influence that comes to bear in the Louisiana Cajun region.

These are a couple of examples, but the story is filled with small details like this that set it not just in Louisiana but in a specific time frame in a specific area and among a specific group of easily identifiable people.

How does local color influence the plot in Kate Chopin's "The Storm"?

It is clear that the biggest relationship between the plot of this excellent short story and the "local colour," as you put it, is the way that the storm is actually a symbol of the far bigger and more dangerous storm of passion that occurs between Calixta and Alcee during the story. Note how their passionate union occurs during the storm:

They did not heed the crashing torrents, and the roar of the elements made her laugh as she lay in his arms. She was a revelation in that dim, mysterious chamber; as white as the couch she lay upon.

Under the cover of the storm, they are both free to indulge in a long-standing infatuation and finally satisfy their desires, in spite of their mutual marriages. The very last line indicates the importance of the storm as a symbol for the entire short story:

So the storm passed and every one was happy.

Having given free reign to their desires, both Alcee and Calixta appear to be able to return and enjoy their marriages. Thus the local colour of the storm and the weather is inextricably intertwined with the desires of the two central characters and how they meet those desires.