BBC Breakfast’s beloved weather presenter, Carol Kirkwood, has spent nearly three decades waking the nation with warmth and professionalism — but behind the smile, she’s been weathering a storm far fiercer than anything on the forecast.
BBC Breakfast’s Carol Kirkwood (Image: BBC)
The 63-year-old meteorologist has revealed that while she’s grown immune to the constant personal jabs and online trolling, there’s one line she can’t bear to see crossed: when the attacks turn on her family.
“My family doesn’t deserve to be dragged in — it hurts,” Carol told Radio Times.
“Call me a weather girl, a weather presenter, a meteorologist — I don’t care. I am who I am, and I’m proud of it. But my loved ones? They should be off limits.”
For Carol, the insults aimed directly at her have long been “water off a duck’s back.” But the poisonous vitriol targeting those closest to her leaves marks no one can see.
Her journey in broadcasting began in 1992 at Windsor TV before she moved through BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio 2, and BBC Radio 4. By the late ’90s, she was a regular face on BBC News and, soon after, the trusted voice of BBC Weather across television and radio. Through it all, she’s quietly endured “very personal” trolling, which she once described in 2014 as “dreadful.”
In recent months, viewers noticed her battling what she described as a “pesky 100-day cough” on air — a small but telling glimpse of the pressures she faces while still showing up for the audience every day.
Away from the cameras, Carol surprised fans at Christmas 2023 when she revealed she had married her longtime partner, Steve Randall, in a romantic ceremony at Cliveden House, Buckinghamshire. “It was the most perfect day — we are bursting with happiness,” she said.
Through career highs, health battles, and deeply personal challenges, Carol Kirkwood remains a steady presence on British television — proof that even in the fiercest storms, there are anchors who refuse to be moved.
