I find the most helpful weather info via weather.gov -- with the forecast customized for our specific area via the "click on the map" option -- and always reading the "forecast discussion" -- more than once a day if there is a significant weather situation impending. It's for the whole area covered by that weather office, but, at least in our area, gives a better idea of what the original source weather predictors think about upcoming weather.
Regular monitoring is the key, at least here. Just a single check doesn't give nearly as clear a picture of any developing situation.
Sometimes they have high confidence in the forecast -- sometimes not. Often they'll say, for example, that they've put a low possibility of precip into the forecast for (specific areas) so that people don't expect good weather, but that chance of precip may be raised if (this happens), so to keep an eye on forecast updates if weather matters to you. Or they may say that they've put the probability higher for bad weather than they really think is most likely because it's a high travel weekend and they want people to take seriously the chance of bad roads and to watch the weather closely as the approaching (whatever) develops. Or they'll explain that they expect "banding" of snow (or other precip), which will bring heavy precip to some areas and little to nearby areas, but is difficult to predict specific affected regions until the bands begin to form.
We are near the boundary between the territories of two offices, so I monitor the predictions from both offices for our area -- which is helpful -- though the one whose boundary just misses us is much more likely to have accurate predictions for our particular area -- which one wouldn't know if using weather services that take the weather.gov info and rephrase it for their own prediction sites -- or those that just echo the official prediction for our area.
Not perfect, but, regularly monitoring the predictions and forecast discussion at weather.gov there have been many times that I've been able to protect things from hail, or get supplies in and outdoor measures taken to deal with incoming snow, or get garden things harvested or protected from incoming rain, wind, frost, etc.
Then sometimes weather is just weather and there's not much to do but emulate the wild critters -- creep into shelter and hope nothing heavy lands on your head.
