The Met Office is the UK’s official weather service. For the last 150 years the Met Office has been important in predicting and understanding global weather and climate science. According to the website the Met Office has: ‘a vital role to play in providing as much information as possible about weather and climate. Today we combine the latest science with ground breaking advances in technology and local understanding to deliver operational advantage to our customers.’
Clearway Gritting use a paid for service from the Met Office that provides road surface forecasts for winter gritting contractors. The Met Office also provide a range of specific road services to help reduce the impact of bad weather on operations.
Researching the weather
The Met Office also carry out extensive research. Their research and development team undertake scientific research and review weather and ocean forecasting reflecting on climate predictions.
The Met Office Education area
The Met Office provides an education area for students and teachers wanting to learn more about climate change and the weather. In this area you can find out about how weather forecasts are produced and researched, how the weather works and the training provided to the Met Office team.
How the Met Office website prepares you for bad weather
The Met Office website is a useful tool for finding out when you should prepare for snow by organising winter gritting maintenance. The Met Office regularly issues weather warnings that are useful, but you can also add your postcode and the website gives you daily weather and a long-term weather forecast for your area.
Peter Boniface, Operations Manager, Clearway Gritting, St Albans, Hertfordshire said: ‘We use the Met Office website to help us make decisions about winter gritting. It allows us to decide when we should go out and grit roads, footpaths, retail parks and car parks as we can check the likelihood of snow at various locations across the south east of England. The Met Office website is an excellent place to start if you want to learn more about the British weather. There are also some useful articles - 10 things you should do now to prepare for winter. Also – Clearing your path or driveway: The snow code.’
Peter Boniface, Operations Manager, Clearway Gritting, St Albans, Hertfordshire continued: ‘We are finalising our winter gritting maintenance schedules with our regular clients. We work for private businesses, supermarkets and universities across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex and North London making sure their private roads, footpaths, private car parks, industrial estates and footpaths are gritted and clear from snow. It is not too late to put your winter gritting contingency plan into place. Last year the first snowfall of the season came at the start of December 2017. If you would like a free initial consultation about your winter gritting requirements please contact our Clearway Gritting team in St Albans on 01727 851837.
For more information read: Meteorologists forecast coldest winter for 2018; Largest centralised winter gritting and snow clearance fleet in south east
