Combining virtual reality with meteorological application can effectively overcome the limitations of traditional models in the meteorological field, and is a main research direction of virtual reality technology. The definition and composition of virtual reality technology are briefly introduced, and its development is divided into three stages: germination, preliminary application and comprehensive development; meanwhile, the representative achievements of each stage are summarized. The theoretical research achievements of virtual reality technology in weather phenomena, weather systems and numerical forecast products are discussed in detail. In addition, the typical cases of applying virtual reality technology in the fields such as the training of meteorological sounding equipment maintenance, film and television publicity and meteorological popularization are analyzed and summarized. The problems faced by virtual reality technology in meteorological application are discussed from two perspectives: virtual reality industry and its combination with meteorological application. The last part of this paper discusses the possible research direction and future prospects.