Some interesting meteorological phenomena for you to use

[Electric Bone Flute]

Some of these probably drive entire plots, some less so.

• Spider tornadoes
• An uninhabited planet has a chemical other than water in such quantities that it has a cycle for it like water planets have water cycles
• Cold waves so cold that all molecular motion stops; this happens every ten thousand years and it ends the world every time
• Cyclones but they're the size of your hand and as harmful as a fist
• Solid fog
• Blood rain (for a planet made of flesh)
• Pollution so severe the entire planet gets acid rain
• Wind that blows directly down
• Humidity that goes beyond 100% air saturation and causes sudden floods of low to severe natures, as if water spawned into existence
• Same but for small pockets of inexplicable air pressure so it's a fact of life that people's heads occasionally get crushed without warning
• Air currents powerful enough to lift you riding an elephant-or-equivalent hauling a cart full of gold and also set you down reasonably gently that are all over the planet and get taken advantage of as trading routes in the same way currents in water are
• Aurora borealis but it's so bright it blinds you the instant you look at it
• Very flat moss that survives freezing such that "green ice" is possible
• Already a real thing, solar flares, but hive minds are depending on EM radiation so solar flares can brain damage them
• Air contains a chemical that catalyzes under certain conditions into something that makes one or all species go mad (or some other effect)
• Sandstorms but the sand is basically coarsely ground glass so it shreds you
• Hailstorms but they are icicles
• Hailstorms but they are fully formed statues
• Sunbeams solidify sometimes (but not all of them)
• Ever heard of whale falls? That but they go up into the air, then go down with a splat on land
• Wind sounds like music to everyone, and it's the same song always, every time. Think of the effect that would have on people's perception of music if there was one song they always heard, potentially every day for hours on end in very windy places
• Solid rainbows, potentially ones that you can walk on
• Edible rainbows
• Lightning you can literally bottle
• Same for sunshine

Tell me which of these stick out at you especially.

 

[Saigonnus]

• Pollution so severe the entire planet gets acid rain
• Very flat moss that survives freezing such that "green ice" is possible
• Sandstorms but the sand is basically coarsely ground glass so it shreds you
• Hailstorms but they are icicles
• Hailstorms but they are fully formed statues
• Wind sounds like music to everyone, and it's the same song always, every time. Think of the effect that would have on people's perception of music if there was one song they always heard, potentially every day for hours on end in very windy places
• Lightning you can literally bottle
• Same for sunshine

The first idea is indicative of a sci-fi story in which the valiant crew visits a planet like Venus, with an atmosphere with heavy amounts of ammonia or sulfur. It might also be a post-apocalyptic story in which said things are in the air due to industry, and it will take 1000 years for the environment to fix itself.

I could see the moss idea working for basically any story. I imagine it decorating stalactites or rock formations and it expands slowly when it isn't frozen, so over time these areas of green ice spread. Maybe it even sends out spores when it isn't frozen, allowing it to spread to other localized rock formations. I could see whole areas becoming covered with it.

Sandstorms in real life are deadly enough, even as finely ground as sand tends to be. For all intents and purpose sand IS glass under those conditions. They can shred your unprotected skin, rip your eyes until they bleed, cause nose bleeds and reduced visibility to next to zero. You don't need to exaggerate these much to make them a genuine threat.

I don't see icicle hail or "statue" hail as realistic. Like rain, hail forms into beads, the most energy efficient shape. Occasionally here on Earth you might get hail the size of a man's fist. Imagine something that large moving at terminal velocity when it hits someone... it can kill even that size falling from the sky. If hypothetically it were even larger (watermelon sized or bigger), you'd have damage to structures, houses collapsing and whatnot. It also wouldn't break the disbelief.

In regards to the wind, I could actually see something a little different. Perhaps the wind interacts with naturally occuring crystals. The motion of the air sets off sympathetic vibrations in the crystals, causing them to emit notes. If you have a variety of sizes, the notes could be different. Heck, you could even cull the crystals you don't want, so you can customize the song the wind plays.

Lightning you can bottle is interesting, and perhaps even possible. I can imagine zones where lightning strikes are frequent. Now imagine something in the soil acts like a storage medium. What if lightning strkes create sculptures of glass (which really happens) and they retain some of the electric properties; like a battery. Perhaps a society uses these zones as power-production facilities.

Sunlight would also hypothetically serve in the way described above. Perhaps naturally occuring crystals can absorb light, and after that glow for a set length of time. Might be useful for lanterns, lighting inside buildings.

 

[Flight]

Solid fog and air currents could change the logistics of the world in interesting ways. Say there is gorge that sometimes is filled with the solid fog and you can cross it.

Sunshine in a bottle is kind of the same thing as Silmarils or the phial of light what Frodo and Sam used in the cave of Shelob.

Small cyclones might only be minor curiosity in the story, unless some of the characters are also tiny.

Of those phenomenon that are global the natives most certainly have managed to adapt said conditions through evolution or instinctive hiding/burrowing to the ground etc.

 

[Electric Bone Flute]

Oh believe me, the moment I pictured some of the global ones, I thought, "there are no natives," like the one that goes to 0k every 10000 years. I'd imagine that someone else visits that world.

 

[Flight]

You are quite right about that one! But some other effects could be countered (like acid rain) via shelters, going underground, natural resistances, magic shields etc., if someone wants to have natives.