Outlook is bright for TV's sunniest presenter

"Of course, my question was: 'What happens if the parachute doesn't open?' because you'll die basically," relays Kirkwood. "And then, oh my goodness, you're dropping at 150mph. But I would do it again in a flash."

A self-confessed "scaredy-cat" for most of her life, Kirkwood, 52, now grabs opportunities that come with the job - although she draws the line at swimming with sharks. She says: "I've got the best weather job in the world. I get to go to fantastic places, meet lovely people and do exciting things. Sometimes I think, 'Crikey, I get paid for this'."

The downside, if there is one, is getting up at 2.45am every morning for BBC Breakfast, where she has presented the forecast full-time for the past five years, and on and off for 18 years through her employment with the Met Office. She has no evening life, puts the lights out by 9pm and hits the ground running each morning, going straight into the hair and make-up chair while taking her morning Met Office conference call to discuss the day's weather.

It is a sad fact that Kirkwood's job sees her often judged for her looks and subjected to greater scrutiny that her male counterparts, namely because "our clothes are looked at much more," she says.

And Twitter means anyone can have an opinion. "If it's 'My accent's too strong,' get over it. But if it's 'You're too fat' or 'Why do you wear these dresses?' or 'You should retire' - personal stuff, I think, 'Well, that's your opinion.' Some of it gets to you."

Some tweets can't be repeated. "They're being personal, but they don't actually know you, so you let it go." And the majority of people, she adds, are lovely.

The misconception is Kirkwood has a stylist. But no, she is on a "civil service salary," she says, and keeping up with her wardrobe, which she buys herself, is a nightmare.

"When someone says, 'I've seen that dress seven times in the last month, stop wearing it,' you think, 'You wouldn't say that to somebody in the office'. But you take it on the chin."

Kirkwood's role, as she views it, is to deliver the forecast - "I'm not there for my wardrobe."

But still, she feels the pressure getting older - "Because I'm aware of my lines," she admits - although she won't have Botox.

"I won't be getting rid of my laughter lines. What's wrong with getting old? We all do. I've had three close friends who have died from breast cancer," she tells me - having had her own health scare in the past, which she chooses to keep private - "And it makes you think, 'Why am I worried about a few lines?' It's terribly sad there's such a youth culture these days. People expect you to look young. Why? There's beauty in every age."

She hopes she won't be replaced by a younger person, but says: "I do think my career will be coming to an end sooner rather than later, but I don't want to give up yet. The day will come - television is televisual - but I don't want to think about it.

"I'll do something else. I could go into production, but equally, I could work in Marks & Spencer or John Lewis - jump on my bike into town and back again."

Divorced six years ago (after a 25-year marriage) and "happily single" ("If anyone's reading this," she jokes, "I'm single, solvent, and have a good sense of humour...") - Kirkwood exudes a bubbly joie de vivre that comes across on camera and accounts, in part, for her huge popularity.

Men love her, women love her. "But with social media, you get instant feedback - good and bad," she adds. "Not everybody likes you and they have no qualms about telling you, in no uncertain terms either, so I don't think I'll ever have a big head."

However, she's in her "comfort zone" doing the weather and is great pals with BBC Breakfast colleagues Bill ("Billy") Turnbull (who she once called "babe" live on air) and Sally Nugent and Stephanie McGovern (both of whom she goes on holiday with every year).

A girly-girl who loves fast cars and loud music (namely Bryan Adams), she lives with her cat Donald outside London. (Having had problems with a stalker in the past, she's non-specific.)

Born one of eight (five sisters, two brothers) in Morar, Inverness-shire, to parents who ran a hotel, Kirkwood had an idyllic childhood. She's close to her huge extended family, many of whom are in Scotland, and which she still regards as home. Her mum lives in Blairgowrie but her father died when she was 21. It devastated her.

"I adored him. He was my blue-eyed boy. It was a long time ago, but you never forget," she says.

As a child, she dreamt of being a Blue Peter presenter, "but I had as much chance of becoming that as I did an astronaut." But she wrote to the BBC anyway, who told her to "get a degree and come back to us".

When school ended, the options for young women were "fairly limited, like secretarial work or a nurse, so television presenting wasn't even on my radar," she recalls. So Kirkwood went to (what is now) Napier University, earning a BA in Commerce.

As part of her degree, she worked at the BBC and, upon graduating, joined the organisation's secretarial reserve. She then left to get married and it was after a series of geographical moves, with her then husband (who she met at Napier), and various career changes - which saw her work as a director for a recruitment consultancy and as a management consultant - that a friend came looking for "stooge presenters for TV training".

She loved it and went on to work for a cable TV company for free alongside her day job.

When that ended, a colleague-turned-agent helped her make a show reel and two days later she got an audition as a weather presenter for the American Weather Channel, which was setting up in the UK.

She didn't want the audition, "because in those days weather presenters didn't have the best image..." she recalls. But she went anyway, and it was "love at first sight". They hired her, trained her in meteorology in Atlanta and when the channel pulled out of Europe soon after, she was hired by the BBC in 1998 just as News 24 was launching.

"And the rest is history," she smiles. "It's a brilliant job because the weather changes so much. I can say it's going to be raining at 11am - but it might not and I'm like, 'Come on, rain!' Forecasters are right more than they're wrong, but it's when it's wrong everyone remembers."

When on-air mishaps make the papers, she laughs it off. Most recently she was "upstaged by a bloomin' dog" urinating behind. She also gets accused of being Scotland-biased. "I try to do it fairly, but Scotland does get a lot of weather" she says.

So what kind of winter are we going to have? "Honestly, I don't know," she replies, but longs for four "distinctive seasons."

Climate change means "everything seems to be merging".

Kirkwood is the consummate professional and, as such, is very private - and humble. "I don't want everybody knowing everything about me.

"I'm not that kind of person. I do programmes with 'celebrity' in the title, but I don't see myself as one.

"I'm a weather presenter who just happens to be on telly because it's my job. I certainly don't see myself as better than anybody else. I don't like the attitude of people who think because they're on telly, they're something special.

"I come across a lot of divas. It switches me right off. When somebody says, 'It must be great being a celebrity,' my answer is always, 'I'm not'. People like doctors, nurses, teachers, firemen - they actually do something for us. I don't.

"I get paid for standing on telly presenting the weather - there's no comparison."