You probably knew that Twitter has been instrumental in shaping the news, but what about the weather?

Well, I’m not sure that Twitter’s altering the weather itself too much (though there was that stuff about Google searches’ impact on the environment a while back), but it is now adding to weather reporting.

Twitter announced today that it has partnered with The Weather Channel to bring real time tweets about the weather to The Weather Channel, Weather.com, and The Weather Channel’s mobile apps.

The Weather Channel has created Twitter accounts for 200 U.S. cities. Users should be able to keep up with the local weather via these accounts.

If you go to Weather.com, they have a tool called “Social Weather,” which allows you to find the local weather for your area, provided that you live in an area they’re tweeting about.

Twitter itself provides a list of other accounts to follow for commentary around weather events here.

“People send more than 200 Tweets per minute about the weather,” says Twitter on its official blog. “When conditions turn severe, weather-related Tweets double, as people share powerful personal stories along with reports of hurricanes, heat waves and blizzards.”

Take that Google+.