I think if you have enough local friends, that falls into 1. (I got a bunch of warning about recent bad weather in the Bay Area, because of how many Facebook friends I have there.)
Your general point is correct, that knowing about the general state of reality can be useful because reality can collide into your plans. But it's not clear to me you need to do much of that filtering yourself.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.
4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.