There is no place to live that is totally safe from bad weather. It is in the best interest of every citizen of the United States to pay for climate and weather modeling as disastrous weather can have massive impact on the economy. Also, from a moral standpoint, I personally don't mind shelling out some money to try and keep people safe.
As to your point about people living in areas where weather tends to be statistically more dangerous: If the government came to your house and forced you to leave, how would you feel about that?
Nobody is suggesting forcing people to leave, but there are people that knowingly live in places that are drastically more dangerous just like there are a ton of people that decide to not take responsibility for their own health which creates a burden on everyone. I'm just suggesting that those local governments should take more responsibility. Or people pay extra for insurance. Some areas are so risky you can't even buy insurance to protect your home. So maybe those states should come up with a strategy rather than let the whole country pay.
We've seen it unfold before where the federal government is too late and more people die than should have given the circumstances. It enables states to defer the safety of their own people it depends on to function.
Most things should be at the state level. And you're wrong about libertarians. It's not about things "went well for me screw everyone else". It's about pushing responsibility to the states where it's supposed to be which is what I was proposing. Your rude stock response just means you aren't open to a discussion and are consumed by your own biases.
This is a very good point. During the height of the 2011 Super Outbreak [0], April 27th, many of the strongest tornadoes crossed state lines. Taken as a whole, the event lasted four days and spawned tornadoes as far north as New York, south to Florida, east to Arkansas and west to the Carolinas.
Here's the thing: thanks to NWS forecasting and climate modeling, we had DAYS of warning that this was probably going to be a very bad storm. Obviously, they can't tell you X tornado is going to hit Y neighborhood, but from a standpoint of getting pre-warning out, we had lots of notice that things were going to be tough.
Historically, the deadliest tornado in American history was the Tri-State tornado [1], that started in Missouri and ended in Indiana.
None of these could be taken individually as they were all part of the same large mesoscale system. Lots of ingredients go into a good climate model, from which good predictions can be made.
On an "average" severe weather event, from where I live (Huntsville, northern part of Alabama just south of the Tennessee border), storms usually fire up across central Mississippi, move rapidly northeast across Alabama and dissipate or weaken as they move into eastern Tennessee.