Welcome to the forum! I started watching The Weather Channel in the late 1980s, and, like you, I really miss the days when TWC actually broadcast weather all the time. There certainly was something comforting about it, wasn't there?
Breaks in regular weather programing were extremely rare, but these special documentaries were almost always of very high quality. I remember Marshall Seese hosting "Force Four" about Hurricane Hugo - that was a wonderful documentary and I enjoyed watching it the few times I got to see it.