Stevie Jacobs on his ten-year stint as The Today Show weatherman: ‘it’s the best and worst job’

TODAY weatherman Stevie Jacobs is one of the hardest working people in television, but you only see a tiny window into his world.

HE’S on the road up to 300 days a year, works 16 to 18 hour days and can spend his mornings doing anything from being attacked by a chicken to a parasailing disaster, but there’s more to Stevie Jacob’s job than meets the eye.

The 48-year-old Today weatherman, who has worked on the Nine breakfast show for the past ten years, is undoubtedly one of the hardest working people in television.

But what you see each time Karl and Lisa throw to the unflappable Jacobs is only a tiny window into his world.

“I really feel like I’m the luckiest person in the universe,” Jacobs told news.com.au of his decade-long weatherman career, “it’s the best and worst job at the same time. You’re doing 16 to 18 hour days, you’re up at four in the morning and then you’re travelling for the rest of the day. You might have two plane flights, a five-hour drive, a boat trip, a helicopter and you never know where you’re going to be or how long it’s going to take to get there, so we work extraordinary hours behind the scenes which I don’t think many people really understand.”

Jacobs in Lake Louise, Canada.

To give an example of what a typical day involves, on Tuesday Jacobs woke up in Melbourne at 3.30am, spent three hours crossing to Today from a P&O ship, flew to Sydney at 10am for a few hours work, before flying to Brisbane three hours later and catching a boat in rough seas to Tangalooma Island to shoot a story for the next day on feeding dolphins at 6.30pm.

After checking the satellite feed back to Channel Nine and dinner with the crew, he fell into bed at 10pm, before getting up at 3.30am to do it all over again.

“We do something like that five days a week,” he said. “It is gruelling, it is exhausting, but if you love what you do, and I do, then you just deal with the hours, I don’t want to be doing anything else. Sometimes you get really exhausted and it wears you down, but you just need to know when to recharge.”

And as regular viewers will know, not everything during the three hours he is on air goes to plan. Just this week, Jacobs had viewers in stitches after a parasailing weather cross went horribly wrong.

The Today show's weatherman travels up to 300 days a year.

“It’s always when things go balls up that you get the best TV,” he said. “You never know what’s going to happen. I’ve been attacked by pelicans, black chickens, gorillas and camels, you name it and it always makes the best TV. It’s that adrenaline when they throw to you and you think, ‘what is going to happen now’ and most of the time it goes right, and when it doesn't you just have to go with the flow and hope you get a laugh.”

While most weather presenters have only managed short stints in the gruelling job, Jacobs has been with the show for ten years, having started on Today the same week as Karl Stefanovic.

To put that in perspective, Grant Denyer did two weatherman stints between 2004-2006 and 2010-2013 on Sunrise, before saying doctors told him he was “going to die” if he didn’t walk away from the job.

But Jacobs seems to thrive running on empty.

“I’ve always had this energy level of a kid, I’m wide-eyed with everything I do and am really passionate about life, I think that’s how I’ve managed to do ten years in this job, while some have only managed two or three years.

Jacobs was famously attacked by a pelican, which made international headlines.

“It’s a love of what you do, if you find your passion in life then you do what you have to do to follow it. Since I was about five, I used to watch Hey Hey It’s Saturday and I used to say to say to my parents ‘this is what I want to do, I want to get paid to have fun’ and I just followed that dream and was lucky to fall into it, so I pinch myself every day that I’m lucky enough to do it and if that means 16 or 18 hour days then so be it. I feel like I’ve never had to do a real days work in my life.”

So how does he maintain his trademark charm and charisma when there’s nothing left in the tank?

“The only answer I’ve got is coffee,” when asked how he survives on three hours sleep. “That is key. I’ve been living off coffee when you’ve had three hours sleep for days, and then stupidly, I gave up coffee a year ago so I don’t really know how I do it now.”

The 48-year-old is also juggling his extraordinary work schedule with a busy family life.

Jacobs never takes himself too seriously.

He says he misses his wife Rose, a presenter with Channel 7 who also runs her own travel blog and his daughters Isabella, 4, and Francesca, 2, terribly while on the road.

But while his kids get to travel with him some of the time, particularly when he is in one location for the week, they don’t always get to watch him on TV.

“We’re very aware that I come on straight after the news, and there’s such bad news in the world particularly at the moment that the last thing I want is for my kids to be aware of that at their age. Occasionally, my wife will try and time it so they can see my weather cross when the news is finished and if they do see it, great, if they don’t that’s not a problem, they understand what daddy does now, its always been their life, but we try to shield them from the news as much as possible.

Jacobs says he sees travel as integral to family life, which is why he has partnered with Universal Pictures and The Minions to offer some tips for parents to keep their kids entertained this summer.

Jacobs with daughter Isabella and Francesca and wife Rose.

While there are times when he just wants to relax, he loves exploring new places with his family, and has a house in Vanuatu which has been home to some particularly special family holidays.

Jacobs says he will definitely have to reassess how much travelling he does when his children get older, but for now, he’s happy to let the show roll on.

“We have definitely spoken about that,” he said of his future with the show.

“Once they get to school age things are really going to change, we’ve got a couple of years to worry about that yet. Fortunately The Today Show is a family environment, everyone has kids and they have been unbelievable with me spending time with the family, so I’m sure we’ll cross that bridge when it comes, and if they still want me on the show, we’ll find a way to deal with that as well.”

The Jacobs family on holiday.

Jacobs’ top tips for travelling with kids:

• Go to $2 shop and buy bits and pieces that kids have never seen, they’ll be fascinated for hours with something new and fresh

• Take an iPad on the plane, play a movie like The Minions

• See the world through their eyes, if they want to take 30 seconds to stare at a fish tank, let them. Get down to their level and watch it with them

• Don't be too stressed, take time to connect and try not to rush too much

• Get them out and about, research shows kids absorb and learn more by getting out and seeing, feeling, experiencing and touching things for themselves

* The Minions is out on DVD now.