Tomasz was born in Gdansk, Poland. He attended school both in the UK and his home country, where he developed a keen interest in the weather and natural sciences at a young age.
Despite his strongest abilities being in the arts, he obtained a BSc (Hons) degree in meteorology from Reading University.
During his studies, he spent a short time at Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, analysing tropical weather data.
After a long holiday in south east Asia, he joined the BBC Weather Centre as a broadcast assistant in 2000.
In 2001, he became the youngest male presenter of regional BBC weather forecasts at the age of 22.
One of his roles was to work as a “mobile weathercaster” providing cover for ten BBC TV regions around the UK. This gave him a good grounding in presenting and from winter 2003, he spent some months presenting international weather forecasts for BBC World.
Between 2004 and 2005, Tomasz undertook further meteorological training with the Met Office College in Exeter. This included exams and eight months of training as an aviation weather forecaster at RAF Lyneham.
He gained more experience by working as a civil weather forecaster at the Met Office’s regional weather centre in London.
Whilst working at the Met Office, Tomasz presented on various UK networks including The Weather Channel, Discovery Channel and Channel 4.
He rejoined the BBC Weather Centre in 2006.
He has been the BBC One Christmas Day weather presenter eight times (2008, 2009, 2013, 2016 – 2018, 2020 and 2023).
He’s made the headlines on a few occasions:
- 2007: he was forced to apologise for calling the Outer Hebrides and Western isles “nowheresville”.
- 2010: he raised his middle finger at Simon McCoy – in the belief that he was off camera – after a gentle tease from the BBC news presenter.
- 2016: he failed to finish the BBC Radio 4 weather forecast due to being sick.
After cost-cutting measures and a decision to switch to a smaller core of national weather presenters, Tomasz disappeared from his on-air roles in December 2010 and took redundancy.
On 29th May 2012, he joined BBC South East as a weather presenter and returned to national BBC broadcasts on 19th January 2013, with appearances on BBC Breakfast.
He has since presented weather bulletins on BBC London, BBC News channel, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 5 Live. In 2017, he co-presented Weather World on the BBC News Channel.
In 2010, he was named Best TV Weather Presenter at the TRIC (Television and Radio Industries Club) awards and posed only wearing shorts for the front cover of Attitude Active magazine.
In 2017, he was voted the most popular weather presenter in the UK in a Radio Times public poll.
In October 2017, Tomasz’s painting skills were highlighted in an interview with Simon McCoy on the BBC News channel, in which he showed his portraits of well-known faces including Dame Judi Dench.
During the Covid pandemic (2020 – 2021), his ever growing hair was the source of much discussion on social media.
In November 2011, he appeared on the celebrity version of Sky Arts’ Landscape Artist of the Year. Filmed in Whitstable, Kent, Tomasz won the event.
He lives in west London with his two housemates and enjoys jogging, going to his local gym and painting.
Personal information
Clips of Tomasz on The TV Room
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Online presence
Acknowledgements
PICTURED: Tomasz Schafernaker. COPYRIGHT: BBC.
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