Weather satellites are enormously good business, but its hard to figure out a way to charge the customer.

I used to draw isotherm maps, and gather local observers' data, for one of the commercial firms that makes money off something one can get elsewhere for free: the weather forecast. What you have to sell is the presentation, not the data.

I don't remember which newspapers close to you, ER, might be clients of that firm, but there's undoubtedly at least one in the area. The rest of you: look at the 'weather page' of your local newspaper. Chances are, its production has been contracted out to my erstwhile employers, or someone else like them -- who prepare the page in final graphic form to the customer's specifications, then put it on an FTP site to be downloaded directly into the printing software.

Their in-house meteorolgists are using the same data the NWS forecasters use, and their interpretations won't differ by much at all from the "free" service (government-provided, your tax dollars at work). It's all in the packaging.