We know you love to have your voice heard, so here's your chance to register your constructive opinions. We've developed a survey to help us better understand how readers of Gawker Media sites receive and use weather forecasts. Your participation is requested and appreciated.

Weather is one of the most important factors in everyday life, and aside from death and taxes, it's the one uniting factor that affects every person on Earth (and even the few folks orbiting above it). The United States in particular is a microcosm of the global climate—from the dry climate of the desert to the temperate Mid-Atlantic to the hot, muggy atmosphere of south Florida, this country is uniquely positioned in the world to see every type of weather condition imaginable.

In order to help us stay ahead of hazards that are inconvenient or even lethal, we need access to solid, high-quality weather forecasts. Keeping people safe from dangerous weather requires understanding how much they trust forecasts and the people who issue them, as well as how seriously they take the threat of, say, a tornado or hurricane.

The following survey is several pages long and it should only take you about five minutes to complete. The survey is broad in scope, asking you for your thoughts and opinions on everything from weather forecasts to The Weather Channel to tornadoes and hurricanes.

For the best results (and the most data to play around with), we need as many people to participate as possible. Whether you're a faithful reader or if you've never been here before, thank you, and thank you for your participation in this project. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email me at dennis.mersereau@gawker.com or Tweet me @wxdam.

The survey should appear embedded in Kinja below. If it doesn't show up or you run into problems with it, please click here and take the survey directly from Google Docs. Barring any unforeseen issues, the survey will remain open until 12:00 PM EST on Wednesday, November 26, 2014, and the results will appear here on The Vane the following week once everyone recovers from their turkey comas.

Thank you again for your participation!

[Update, 10:17 PM November 26: The survey is now closed. Thank you for your participation! Check back with us around Monday, December 1, for the results.]

[Maps in both this post and the survey via the WPC]

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