As Harry Enten notes, the National Weather Service did a good job calling yesterday's blizzard in New York. Something most folks don't understand about weather forecasts is that they're usually right in a general way. That is to say if they say your city will get 1" of rain, that usually means that some areas of your city will get 1" of rain. It doesn't necessarily mean your home will get it. A forecast for all of Southern California covers many areas of different elevation, proximity to the ocean or mountains, etc.
Years ago, I was involved in an odd way with the business of forecasting the weather on TV. One of the things I learned was that there's a big difference in a forecast that says your city will be rainfree because a passing storm will miss it by fifty miles…and one that says your city will be rainfree because there's no storm within a thousand miles. Try to get your predictions from some source that has the sensitivity (or the time or space) to make that distinction. A storm that is going to come close to you can always get blown a little off course.