BBC Great British Weather show comes to strath
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A PRIME-TIME national BBC series which has just aired for the first time will feature a well-known local holiday spot.
Popular presenter Carol Kirkwood will be shown getting a windsurfing lession at Loch Insh Watersports Centre by Kincraig in the final episode of BBC One’s "The Great British Weather".
Instructor Andy Freshwater has been giving tips to Carol, the face of BBC Breakfast’s weather.
"Andy’s a fantastic teacher!" Carol said. "I have never windsurfed, but he has made me feel at home on the board."
But what impressed the film crew even more was Mr Freshwater’s reading of the local weather. The five-strong crew had set up shop on the beach under nondescript clouds with no discernible wind.
After Carol had recorded her beach-side introduction, her tutor assured them that the weather was about to take a turn for the worse.
He said: "When Creag Dhubh disappears, you know you have ten minutes before something happens. If the water at the head of the loch turns white, you know heavy rain is heading this way."
The water did turn white, and within ten minutes there was rain during the recording. Lots of it.
Carol will also be reporting on the weather not from the safety of a BBC studio but from 15,000 feet in the air as she paraglides into the heart of an enormous cumulus cloud as part of the new show.
After two years with the Weather Channel, Carol trained with the BBC at the Met Office before joining BBC News as a full-time weather presenter and has become a firm favourite with viewers.
She is a three-times winner of the best TV Weather Presenter gong at the Television and Radio Industry’s Club Awards.
Her co-presenters on ‘The Great British Weather’ are Alexander Armstrong and Chris Hollins, and guests include veteran weather presenter Michael Fish, who appeared last night, and cricket legend Freddie Flintoff.
Next week’s show will come live from the Lake District; Greenwich, in London, will be the setting for the third; and the fourth and final will see the production company return to Scotland for a live broadcast from Stirling Castle.
That show will include the Kincraig coverage.
Director Glen Barton said: "At least we had some weather here. We were way up north at Cape Wrath yesterday, and all we got was fog. It was incredibly frustrating – we could have been on Clapham Common, or anywhere!
And it was a long way to go just to be anywhere!"
Carol said after recording that she will be back to enjoy more of what the strath has to offer.
