Goodbye there, Heather

The woman synonymous with Scottish weather is every bit as bubbly and smiley in the flesh as she is on screen. But the couthy moniker and chipper manner that put a flutter into old soldiers' hearts meant that Heather the Weather was sometimes dismissed as a lightweight.

Reid has a BSc in physics from Edinburgh University and a masters degree in remote sensing and image processing. A former chairman of the Institute of Physics, a recipient of the Kelvin medal for services to science, a trustee of the Glasgow Science Centre and a visiting lecturer at Glasgow University, she has left the BBC to become a freelance consultant, promoting science education and, in particular, the new curriculum for excellence.

It's a far cry from the bimbos-with-brollies reputation which has stalked weather women since Ulrika Jonsson shook her blonde mane on TV-am in the 1980s, when Reid was still a schoolgirl. How does she cope with the assumption that weather girls are the airheads of the airwaves, better known for phwoar-casts than weather reports?

"There has been a move away from the science and towards the presentational skills," she admits. "That had a lot to do with 24-hour news. We needed a lot more weather presenters and there weren't enough scientists to go round. We started using people with presentational skills who could be given a good briefing and go on and communicate that. I'm all for that."

However, while it was Reid's "presentational skills" that led to her being seconded from the Met Office to BBC Scotland, the presenter initially took umbrage at being called a "weather girl": "I was forever getting on my soapbox. I used to correct people and say, 'I'm a weather forecaster.' Now, if they call me a weather girl, I'm flattered."

In Reid's view, the dumbing-down of forecasting has more to do with the BBC's controversial graphics introduced in 2005 than flighty blonde presenters.

"The new graphics produce all the weather for you," she says. "That was my job. I decided what symbols to put on but when the model data started forming the weather and it was controlled by London, it changed things for me. I didn't get the same satisfaction and the same challenge as I did when it was a one-woman show."

She was also aware that, for the BBC, 40 is something of a cut-off age for female presenters. But the real catalyst for leaving was her daughter, Jenna, 5. Reid's work at the Institute of Physics and the Glasgow Science Centre, plus forecasting for the BBC, meant that she was working 50-hour weeks and in danger of becoming an absent parent.

"It was all becoming too much," she says. Last year she sat down with her husband, Miles Padgett, professor of optics in the department of physics at Glasgow University, and had "a serious talk". She told the BBC she was leaving in October and was keen to be out by Christmas. Ironically, it was the severity of the weather which rescued her from the emotion of her last day.

"I had to be 110% focused on the weather," she says. "As a forecaster, you do feel a degree of responsibility. Ultimately, people can die because of the weather and that's something you never forget about."

But you can't help feeling that the BBC has missed a trick. Reid has a rare ability to communicate complex concepts, she has built up a strong following, and her science work gives her credibility. She was never going to follow the procession of weather girls on to pastel sofas or mindless game shows, but why was she not snapped up to present a popular science show, such as a 21st-century equivalent of Tomorrow's World? The answer seems to be that there are no popular science shows on the BBC these days.

"BBC Scotland has such a big news remit and big sport remit that there isn't a huge opportunity to do a lot of science broadcasting," says Reid. "The science programmes which are broadcast for adults are quite philosophical and tend to be about the ethics of science rather than the science itself. You probably get more science in an episode of Top Gear."

She would like to see scientists work more closely with the media to explain their work and believes they have a duty to do so. But when they do, they are often attacked by other scientists. Susan Greenfield, a baroness, Britain's leading female scientist and one of science's best communicators, is fighting for her job at the Royal Institution having been made redundant by colleagues who resent her populist style.

"I'm a huge fan of hers," says Reid, who has spoken at the Royal Institution. "It's very sad. In some ways, what's happened to Susan Greenfield is the opposite of what's happening at the grassroots level. They do want to communicate their science with the public. A lot of academics come to engage with the public at the science centre."

There is certainly plenty of opportunity for Reid. Her specialism has been projected out of its sleepy backwater into a scientific maelstrom. Climate change has become a burning issue and she has little time for those who deny it exists.

"When I started forecasting, to break a record was a really unusual event and you would rush to the record books to check," she says. "Now, we break these weather records - minimum temperatures, amount of rain on a single day - routinely. That, for me, is a big change.

"If you look at the big picture, we are producing more energy than ever before. That energy has to go somewhere. We are seeing more extreme weather events. It makes complete and utter scientific sense."

Her advice is to make the most of the snow as we are unlikely to see much in the future. "What is happening now could be quite historic," she says. "We will see more flooding. Sepa [Scottish Environment Protection Agency] did a study, saying 20,000 more homes are at risk because of severe weather."

Despite fronting the Path is Green initiative, aimed at encouraging young people into green jobs in Scotland, she also sounds a cautious note about Scotland's rush to renewables.

"I do have reservations about putting all our eggs in one basket," she says. "A variety of resources is what is needed, including nuclear. I know people have concerns about nuclear but we are also talking about carbon capture and that has its problems. If something went wrong and a lot of carbon were to be released suddenly into the atmosphere, that would have implications. In years to come, carbon capture might not be seen as such a fantastic solution."

A keen cyclist and hill climber, Reid has reservations about the Beauly to Denny power line which has been approved by the SNP government, but her "gut instinct is that we may have to do this".

One of her first jobs as a science education consultant will be with Learning and Teaching Scotland to sell the curriculum for excellence to science teachers and parents. Her parents were teachers and Reid, born and raised in Paisley, almost went into teaching herself. It was her physics teacher, Mr Weir, who inspired her choice of degree.

When she got an OBE for services to physics in 2007, she dedicated it to unsung physics teachers. "It was a great day," she says. "I went with my mum to Holyrood to receive it. My dad, sadly, wasn't well enough to come. He was at home with my husband and my little girl. As soon as the ceremony was over, we rushed home and had a party." Her father died not long afterwards.

Whatever the future holds for Reid, it is unlikely to be more babies. "Jenna is more than enough for us. She's a very sociable little thing and she has lots of friends. I was 35 when I had Jenna and Miles is older. We may have drawn a line under that."

Children, however, remain her focus. She believes scientists should talk up the international travel and good salaries on offer to encourage more pupils to opt for science.

She has no regrets about leaving the BBC, she says. But the BBC might yet come to regret losing her. It never really worked out how to make the most of her warm front.

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