Weather mapWhat do you think of the weather?

Forecasters want your views – not on the dreadful summer or the fact that it hasn’t stopped raining for the past forty days or so – more, how you use the official weather reports. The Met Office is conducting a survey of what features walkers would like to see in future.

The Public Weather Service Customer Group, which oversees the free services provided by the Ministry of Defence-funded Met Office, is co-operating with the Mountaineering Council of Scotland to find out which aspects of current forecasts walkers and mountaineers find useful and how they can be improved in future.

The present survey (a Word document) is for Scotland, but there are plans for similar exercises in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Walkers who complete the survey have a chance to win a visit to the Met Office’s headquarters in Exeter.

grough readers can access the Met Office mountain weather forecasts via the link on our left-hand menu, along with rival services from the sportscotland-funded Mountain Weather Information Service run by Geoff Monk, and the computer-based Metcheck models. There is also a link to the English Lake District Weatherline, the Scottish Avalanche Information Service and the comprehensive weather buffs’ website run by Ant Veal.

We recommend everyone gets a thorough idea of what weather to expect before tackling the hills and mountains of the UK.