The Highland Council is responding to the high number of enquiries received from the public about the bad weather to open its Customers Service Centre this weekend.
The Centre will be operational between 9 am - 5 pm on both Saturday and Sunday.
The number is 01349 886606.
The Service Centre, which is based in Alness, has dealt with an average of more than 1,700 calls each day since Monday 4 January. This is a rise of 15%.
The public is asked to use this number if they have queries about school openings and roads and housing issues.
Councillor Carolyn Wilson, Chairman of the Resources Committee said: "At an extremely busy time staff at our service centre have been efficiently and very professionally dealing with a huge amount of calls from members of the public on a wide range of issues including transport, heating, and travel problems due to the severe weather conditions. The levels of calls have never been so high and it is a credit to all the staff that they have managed to cope so well. I would like to thank them for their hard work and assure anyone contacting the council that our priority is to deal with all calls as promptly and as effectively as possible."
The Council operates an emergency out of hours service. This number should be used out with the opening hours of the Service Centre.
The Council's out of hours emergency numbers are: - Social Work and TEC Services - 0845 769 7284; Housing - 0845 700 2005.