If you’ve been tuned into ITV Granada in the last 20 years, Jo Blythe will probably have advised you when to take an umbrella. She has some notoriety among British regional TV presenters, having had a long, respectable career without any major events other than her large viewership in her part of the UK. Here are the facts we know about Jo Blythe, then the speculation that often surrounds a familiar broadcaster.
Who Is Jo Blythe?
Jo Blythe is a British television weather presenter who has been covering this field for many years. One of the most consistent and longest-running brands of coverage can be credited to her work on ITV Granada Reports. She has also been heard on Granada Reports, ITV Lunchtime News, Good Morning Britain and Central Tonight.
There is no indication that her title has been recognized by others as being a qualified meteorologist – a notable consideration given the casual online use of this and other titles. She has always had a relaxed style on television. An institution to Granada Reports viewers through the decades, she is known as the person who will give a simple forecast in a natural, friendly manner rather than a scripted one.
Early Life and Background
That’s where the facts thin out. Multiple fan pages and unofficial bios cite Blythe’s date of birth as 6 May 1980, but there doesn’t seem to be a source for that – it just propagates around fan pages and celeb profile sites. Again, no exact place of birth is given, but the ones listed here – Yorkshire, Gloucestershire and Manchester – all seem to be as untraceable as the rest of her biography.
Information about her education is similarly sketchy. Only a few sites say she was studying Media and Popular Culture at Leeds Metropolitan University before she took up a career in broadcasting, but there’s nothing to substantiate this assertion, so treat it as a recurring rumour.
Career: Two Decades on Regional ITV
What is more evident is her career history. Jo Blythe has been the ITV weather presenter since 2001- which is actually verified first by ITV’s own regional team page and not by speculation from fan sites- and early in her career appeared on a range of ITV’s regional franchises, including Granada, Yorkshire, Border, Tyne Tees and Calendar.
This was not at all untypical in those days, as many of those regional ITV franchises would regularly rotate their presenters to cover other franchises or give their weather presenters experience while a regular regional presenter was found. For instance, between 2006 and 2008, she was the weather presenter for ITV’s Yorkshire-based Calendar programme, before becoming more permanent with ITV Granada. As far as her programme credits go, here’s a more detailed timeline.
She can be seen on Granada Reports in 2005-21; she is seen in more than 400 episodes, and she is seen in Good Morning Britain 2016-23 as the Granada North West weather forecaster. She is seen on Central Tonight 2013-21, and based on these figures, she has been one of the most prolific presenters to emerge from the North West in the history of regional broadcasting, albeit she has rarely been a star name beyond that region.
Although Granada Reports is one of ITV’s best-known regional news shows, the programme has won Royal Television Society awards for Best Regional News Programme in the North West in several years between 2008 and 2012. Blythe’s weather reports have been a regular feature of the programme for most of that time.
Recognition and Feature Work
Aside from her typical scheduled weather forecast slot, she has also been involved with a few feature and lifestyle reports – the location items regional news programmes often use as a change from the studio format to report on everything from farms to country walks around the North West. These are not new for her role but enable her to broaden her appeal to the regional viewers beyond the weather map.
Another consistent detail throughout the profile pages is a 2006 tribute to the FHM Bloke Awards (compensation: voted the fourth best weather presenter in the UK by the FHM audience). “FHM Bloke Awards” isn’t an accolade, but even if it were, it’s the sort of factor that has more to do with a celebrity’s public profile than anything else. Just about consistently, there it is.
Personal Life
Jo Blythe tends to keep things under wraps when it comes to her personal life, as most regional presenters tend to do when they’re not out seeking tabloid fame. What is known is that she has two children (from the horse’s mouth, that’s ITV’s team page) and her presenting career is her “dream job”. There are several profile websites which claim she is married (or not), but no one has officially confirmed, so we recommend that you take this with a pinch of salt.
She has accounts on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok where she often posts weather updates, as well as updates on her personal life. She is the patron for the charity Labels for Cares and can often be seen promoting and advertising the charity across her social media accounts.
Key Facts About Jo Blythe
- She joined ITV (mostly in Granada and Yorkshire) as a weather forecaster in 2001.
- She has been primarily a forecaster for the main programme, Granada Reports, but has also appeared as part of the team on Good Morning Britain and Central Tonight.
- Most often, she is credited as a weather presenter rather than an actual weather forecaster.
- She has 2 children (the names of her children are confirmed by ITV).
- Her date of birth and place of birth are both cited repeatedly on the web but have not been independently verified.
- She is an ambassador for the charity Labels for Cares and is present on Instagram, X, and TikTok.
What We Know Today
Jo Blythe remains listed as part of ITV’s regional weather team in 2026, although she was last known to be working at the channel in 2023. Her most recent social media activity includes a couple of charity-related updates from December 2025, when she was still seemingly out in public after the tail-off of some of her previous programme work. I’m unsure whether she continues to appear regularly as a regionally-based weather presenter, perhaps on a more ad hoc basis rather than following a ‘regular’ schedule, or whether she has moved on entirely into other work.
Her net worth also appears on other celebrity pages with different numbers, which fluctuate quite a bit, and are not based on a reported income or a financial statement. Consider these as, at best, rough estimates.
Final Thoughts
Jo Blythe‘s professional life is a good illustration of how, at any given time, a long-serving regional TV presenter can be a well-known local figure without necessarily being recorded in the history books in any systematic way. Despite her presence on the screens of millions of viewers for 24 years or more, little about her background can be verified from her official work – in the shape of her track record – beyond a few years as a weather presenter of various ITV programmes. From what does exist about her off-screen life, the personal information – such as it is – largely from fan pages, seems more certain.
