More immediate, and less costly, help can come in the form of better forecasting.
Thanks to research over the past half-century, we know how to do better forecasting.
Unfortunately, this is one area where the amateurs seem to have a better forecasting record.
Perhaps the Met Office hopes it may point a way towards better forecasting.
Without better forecasting, more early warnings could prove worse than useless.
In Tetlock's eyes, better forecasting means not just making better predictions but also gathering data afterward about which predictions were right and wrong.
Regulation has contributed enormously to strangling our financial and economic system, and neither effective solutions nor better forecasting can be expected until we face this.
Although better forecasting and evacuation have, over the past century, reduced the death toll from 7,000 to a few score each year, the amount of hurricane-induced damage to property has risen enormously.
He says competitive grants for academics prioritise projects that answer questions of global significance, which would leave projects like the CSIRO's Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator, which provides better forecasting of fire, cyclones and floods across Australia.
But they are still worth considering, especially because early odds have had a better forecasting record than early polls in recent years, says Mr. Wolfers, who spends much of his time studying prediction markets.
Such randomness has prompted Tesco, the country's largest grocery chain, to create its own weather team in hopes of better forecasting temperatures and how consumer demand changes with them.
