Abstract: The improvement of urban meteorological disaster prevention measures is an effective mean to prevent and alleviate the disaster. However, how to build a multi-cost-sharing disaster prevention system on the basis of identifying public’s willingness to pay is the key to solve the problem. Taking Nanjing rainstorm disaster as an example, this paper analyzes the public’s willingness to pay for urban meteorological disasters prevention and the important role of cognitive resources in it from the perspective of cost sharing. The importance of cognitive resources and economic resources in public payment decision is discussed based on the recursive mixed-process models consisted of probit model and ordered probit model. The research shows that the importance of cognitive resources is obvious, and the risk perception about rainstorm disaster, cognition degree about defensive measure, and reliability of preventative system have expedited public’s willingness to pay. The risk perception of rainstorm disaster is affected by the cognition and experience of disaster trend, which influence the breadth and depth of risk perception respectively, while the influence of education level on risk perception is not significant. To meet the public demand for urban storm disaster risk, defensive measures and disaster trends, it is better for government to strengthen the initiative of popularizing rainstorm disaster, enhance the credibility of supervisors and coordination departments, standardize the popular science content and broaden the popular channels.