I think that you hurricane folks make a good point as to location having an impact on what is useful and what is not. TV and other broadcasts media is useless in my area where tornados can and do form within minutes in the middle of a storm. If you have ever had 2 or 3 or more tornados wonder around your town, perhaps forming and disolving multiple times, you realize that by the time the information gets handed down to broadcast it is old and useless - perhaps making it dangerous even. That's when you need to get the raw data and analyze it yourself.
If you're talking about a huricane that you can track for days... that's alot different.
How reliable is your cell connection in the middle of a hurricane?