Aspiring scientist Flint Lockwood lives with Tim, his widowed father, and his pet monkey, Steve, in Swallow Falls, an island in the Atlantic Ocean with an economy based on sardines, which the world has turned against. Flint invents the "Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator" (FLDSMDFR), which transforms water into food. Flint connects the machine to a power substation and it rockets through town destroying the town square before soaring up into the sky. Flint meets weather intern Samantha "Sam" Sparks; their conversation is curtailed by brightly colored clouds raining cheeseburgers.