But the problem is a problem of planning for uncertainties. Let's say you know its 50/50 chance of a "bad storm" and you have to make a decision to flip the "em

But the problem is a problem of planning for uncertainties. Let's say you know its 50/50 chance of a "bad storm" and you have to make a decision to flip the "emergency prep" switch. You now have four possibilities with associated costs. (and that's a drastically simplified analysis) With the right data, you can come to some level of statistically optimized set of decisions, but that won't ever completely eliminate the instances when you turn on emergency actions, but the storm doesn't follow up. It merely minimizes them... Really, if all these private and public entities care about the accuracy of forecasts, maybe they should have made more noise when NOAA programs were being gutted during the budget process and long term decisions were being made about satellite programs... I can't imagine what the handwringing will be if the satellite coverage gaps come to pass. Maybe we'd actually learn that certain investments in common needs actually pay off quite well.