Not sure if the gain realized with the front end amplifier will allow you to receive the proper frequency or not. You might be a good site for me to measure the increased signal reception to see if it helps you out.
I cannot receive the radio signal from the NYC NWS office from my truck with a 5/8 wave 2-meter antenna, nor can we receive television signals from NYC due to the terrain. The NYC NWS office doesn't even claim to cover our area by radio:
I live in extreme northern Orange County, just to the east of the Sullivan/Ulster border point. Sullivan is served by NWS Binghamton, and Ulster is served by NWS Albany. The Albany office has a transmitter (WXL37) about 15 miles north of my in Ulster County, which gives a strong (and only) NWS signal:
This map shows us as covered by NWS radio...but fails to mention that it is by the wrong forecast office! As I said earlier, I'm not 100% sure that Albany isn't re-broadcasting alerts for NYC on the nearby transmitter as a courtesy, but I doubt it. I personally have Weather Underground alert subscriptions sent to my smartphone, which sees to be the only thing that WU can do right any more.
Radio or not, the politics get interesting for something as simple as a weather forecast when you have three different offices issuing their own different prognostications...especially in the winter. One office will be predicting 6+ inches of snow have have a winter storm warning up, while the other office is only predicting flurries (or rain) and doesn't put out any type of notice at all. It's almost comical to think that neighbors on opposite sides of the imaginary line could see such different weather from the same storm.
TWC's local alerts are interesting as well, since the local cable franchise serves all three areas from the same head end. When t-storms are rolling in from the northwest, the flood alerts from where the storms already have been (Binghamton office) interrupt the warnings for the approaching storm in our area.
Anyway, as long as your radio has an Internet feed that can cope with these silly imaginary lines, I think that it would be useful to the citizens of our area.....