The direction matters, but so does the velocity of the wind. If it is 110 @ 4kts, landing 10L at KSFO makes no sense. You're looking to see if the winds exceed the limitations of the aircraft you're flying. For example, at work all of our aircraft have a 10 knot tail wind limitation, meaning we can't land on a runway with a tailwind greater than 10 kts. So, using your example of DCA, we can land 01 if the winds are 190 @ 5kt, but can't land if the winds are 190 @ 11kts. There are also crosswind limitations to account for as well and they vary for each aircraft type. You can do a google search for (aircraft type) wind limitations" and figure out what they are for the plane you're flying.
Some of these people probably have access to a website that pulls the real world D-ATIS. I have access to one from work, so I use it while on the network. Not everybody has that, but what you can do it look up the D-ATIS phone number on airnav.com or fltplan.com and call it to listen to it. If that's too much hassle, just open up flight aware or flightradar24 and go to the airport and see what runway RW traffic is landing.
Last, I will mention that if ATC isn't on you can technically land whatever runway you want, regardless of if it makes sense or not. It's best to play nice and go in the direction of the other traffic, but you aren't required to do so. Have fun!
