In the final weeks of her life, at Balmoral in the summer of 2022, Queen Elizabeth II had developed a quiet new television habit. A close figure, quoted in the Daily Mail that September, said she wanted the BBC weather on whenever one particular presenter was forecasting. “It was like a bit of a crush,” the source told the paper. “She always wanted to watch the forecasts when he was on.”
The presenter was Tomasz Schafernaker. He retweeted the story and wrote: “Feel so humbled to be mentioned like thisโฆ truly heartwarming.”
Twenty-five years on BBC Weather, and that is still the kind of effect he has on people. It is also part of why the question about his partner has followed him for years, attracting substantial curiosity and very little verified information.
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Tomasz Schafernaker’s Relationship Status
As of May 2026, Tomasz Schafernaker has no publicly confirmed partner. He has never been married, has not spoken about a romantic relationship in any interview, and his only on-record comment about his personal life came in a 2017 conversation with The Guardian, in which he described himself as single. Wikipedia, drawing on available biographical sources, lists him as living alone.
What Has Tomasz Schafernaker Said About His Personal Life?
In that Guardian interview, he was direct about it. “I’m single. I’m probably difficult to date, but I’m quite happy being by myself.” He put the difficulty down to being stubborn, having many hobbies, and working hours that are hard to plan around.
That statement is the most detailed thing he has ever said publicly about his romantic life. Nothing in any subsequent interview, public appearance, or social media post has added to it or contradicted it. For anyone looking for a more recent update, there is not one.
Is Tomasz Schafernaker Married?
No. There is no record of Tomasz Schafernaker marrying, no public spouse, and no Tomasz Schafernaker wife has ever been identified in any authenticated source. His own words and every verified biographical record describe him as single.
Tomasz Schafernaker and Lucy Verasamy
The most persistent story about Schafernaker’s dating life involves Lucy Verasamy, the ITV weather presenter. The basis for the speculation is specific and limited.
In 2019, Verasamy posted a selfie of the two together with the caption: “We’re all on the same team really @schafernaker.” They later attended the Attitude Awards together, where she posted: “First evening out in a long time, and what a night out @schafernaker.”
That is the full extent of what exists in the public record. Neither of them confirmed a relationship. Both described themselves as single when directly asked. They work in the same industry, are clearly on good terms, and have attended events together. No statement or photograph beyond that has been produced to suggest anything more.
Is Tomasz Schafernaker Gay?
Schafernaker appeared on the cover of Attitude, the British magazine with a predominantly gay readership, in January 2010, wearing only shorts. He featured in the magazine again in 2017. Both appearances prompted lasting questions about his sexuality that have never been formally answered.
He has never publicly confirmed his sexual orientation. Attitude regularly features men of all sexual orientations, and Schafernaker has made no statement in any interview, on any platform, about how he identifies. Several websites describe him as openly gay. He has not used that description himself anywhere on record.
He attended the Attitude Awards in 2022. His relationship with the magazine and its readership is evidently warm. How he privately identifies is a matter he has chosen not to address publicly, and the public record reflects that choice.
Who Is Tomasz Schafernaker?
Born in Gdaลsk, Poland, on 8 January 1979, Schafernaker holds Polish-British dual nationality and grew up between Poland and west London. He attended St. John’s College in Southsea, Portsmouth, spent time training at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences in Miami, and graduated from the University of Reading in 2000 with a BSc in Meteorology. He then completed eight months of aviation weather forecasting training at RAF Lyneham before joining the BBC Weather Centre.
In 2001, at 22, he became the youngest male to present BBC regional weather. Since returning to the national BBC team in 2006, he has presented across BBC One, the BBC News Channel, BBC Radio 4, and BBC Radio 5 Live. He has delivered the BBC One Christmas Day forecast eight times, most recently in 2023.
The moment most people remember came in 2010, when he raised his middle finger at newsreader Simon McCoy, believing he was off camera after a gentle tease. The clip reached 5.5 million views on YouTube. He apologised. In 2016, he could not finish the Radio 4 shipping forecast because he was taken ill, reportedly from the previous night’s Christmas party. In 2017, a Radio Times poll of more than 25,000 readers voted him Britain’s favourite weather presenter.
On Would I Lie To You?, Series 12 Episode 4, he told the panel: “Until my mid-thirties, I had no idea that lambs were in fact baby sheep.” He had assumed they were a separate species. The panel confirmed it was true.
In June 2023, he spoke to the Big Issue about two decades of watching climate change alter UK weather patterns. “Our seasons are exhibiting more extreme characteristics,” he said, “and records are being broken more frequently.” The following month, he publicly corrected GB News presenter Neil Oliver on Twitter after Oliver made inaccurate claims about heatwave temperature readings during the European heatwave. HuffPost UK covered the exchange.
Tomasz Schafernaker’s Art Career
In 2021, Schafernaker won Celebrity Landscape Artist of the Year on Sky Arts. Contestants were asked to paint on the theme of climate change. His winning entry depicted a polluted coastal landscape with wind turbines in the distance. The judges selected it as the strongest work of the day.
He started painting portraits in 2018, self-taught, and has since built a working art business that he says occupies roughly half his working week. He works across oils, watercolours, acrylics, graphite, and digital illustration, and runs two dedicated websites, schafernakerart.com and tomaszschafernaker.com, selling original work and prints. In 2024, a painting titled Lagoon was auctioned through The Auction Collective for the Terrence Higgins Trust.
He has appeared on Celebrity Masterchef, BBC Civilisations, Celebrity Portrait Artist of the Year, and National Geographic. In 2023, he began a collaboration with For Arts Sake gallery on Ealing Broadway, where prints of his cloud artwork are displayed in the window.
Where Does Tomasz Schafernaker Live?
Schafernaker has lived in Ealing, west London, for over 20 years. In an interview with Ealing Living magazine in autumn 2023, the most recent personal interview he has given, he described the borough as where his earliest memories in Britain are rooted.
“West London is where I have some of my earliest childhood memories, including various parts of Ealing,” he told the magazine. “However, as an adult, I have been living in Ealing for over 20 years.”
He mentioned Gunnersbury Park as one of his favourite places, drawn by its size, its old growth trees, its pond, and its historic buildings. He also described Elthorne Rough, along the Grand Union Canal, as somewhere with a wilder feel that he finds genuinely peaceful. He takes a sketchpad and watercolour paints to both.
His week, as he described it, divides between TV work in central London and managing his art business from home. No partner features anywhere in that interview.
The question of who Thomas Schafernaker’s partner is has produced a significant volume of content online and very little in the way of verified answers. Based on what is publicly documented, there is no confirmed partner, no marriage on record, and no statement more recent than 2017 in which he addressed the subject. His aunt, who encouraged him to apply to the BBC in the first place, is the only family connection he has publicly mentioned.
What the same searches also tend to miss is the fuller account of who he actually is: a broadcaster with 25 years at the BBC, a self-taught artist who won a national competition and now sells work at charity auction, and a man who takes his paints to west London parks on free afternoons and has lived in the same neighbourhood for the better part of his adult life.
He told The Guardian in 2017 that he was quite happy being by himself. The years since have given no public indication that he has changed his mind.
