Sunrise weatherman Sam Mac celebrates a decade of TV adventureKellie BalaamPerthNowSun, 1 February 2026 10:25AMCommentsCommentsEmail Kellie Balaam
Sam McMillan, or Sam Mac as the nation knows him, must be one of the most well-travelled weather presenters in Australia. Over 10 years, the Sunrise veteran has broadcast from Japan to Uluru to the tiny town of Xantippe in WA, ready to tackle any adventure live on TV.
The entertainer this year celebrates a decade on breakfast TV, and McMillan has taken some time to reflect on career highlights from a job he feels “fortunate” and “privileged” to work in.
“It’s exciting. It’s a bit of a blur to be honest, the nature of the schedule is so relentless,” he said.
“We don’t spend long anywhere; most places, we spend less than 24 hours. So you don’t really have a lot of time to stop and look back.
“This is a great opportunity to reflect a little bit and be proud of the places we’ve managed to visit, the people that we’ve met, the stories that we’ve had the privilege to tell and to share with our viewers, and some of the fun shenanigans that we’ve enjoyed along the way.”
Most people are familiar with McMillan’s comedic style of presenting and ending up in towns across Australia that many haven’t heard of before.
“I really love shining the light on small towns,” he said.
Viewers might remember an undertaking called Australia A to Z, where fans could vote and campaign for which city or town Sunrise would visit for each letter of the alphabet.
“We only realised when we were about halfway through that there’s only one ‘X’ town in the entire country, and it’s in WA, and it’s called Xantippe,” he said.
As of 2016, about 20 people lived in the remote wheat farming town 220 kilometres north east of Perth, but when Sam Mac and his crew turned up, hundreds were waiting for them.
“They’re the types of adventures that you really remember fondly, and it’s something to be grateful for that we get to see these places that otherwise you would never go in your life,” he said.
“I love all the characters that we meet on our travels. That’s one of the real joys of this job.”
The father-of-two also regularly gets stitched up with doing crazy activities on TV while people are eating breakfast, such as shark cage diving, bungee jumping, getting naked in a Japanese onsen and releasing a song with The Wiggles.
“Literally, my first day on air as a weatherman, I was bungee jumping,” he said.
“There’s always some sort of adventure and twist, and that’s why Sean Flynn is an amazing producer, and also why I experienced a lot of trauma.
Despite all the fun memories, the national weatherman has also been involved in some of the country’s dangerous natural disasters.
Before starting his days with Sunrise, McMillan lived in Perth, where he hosted the 92.9 Em and Sam Mac Show in 2009 and then Lisa, Baz and Sam the following year.
“I almost qualified as a Perthonality,” he said.
In 2011, he packed up his life to move to Sydney to pursue a TV career — and as they say, the rest is history.
However, Sunrise has brought him back west over the years, doing live crosses from Margaret River, Broome, Cottesloe Beach and Scarborough and has made several Telethon appearances.
“This year, I’m actually planning to bring my family over for it, because my fiance has never been to Perth, and this year I’d like to bring her and our two daughters and get them exploring a little bit of WA,” he said.
Speaking of exploring, McMillan has been checking out the sights of Melbourne since moving to the Yarra Valley with his partner, Rebecca James and their young daughters, Margot and Mabel.
While not much changes for McMillan, he said the move is “better for us on a family level” with Bec’s parents being eight minutes away.
“We’ve got so much more space than we had in Sydney. It’s a beautiful area with wineries and nature, and I wanted our daughters to grow up surrounded by nature,” he said.
“I love that we can look out on our street and see kangaroos, and we can look in our backyard and see kookaburras in the trees, and we can go on nature walks. And when I’m spending time at home now, I really feel switched off from the high pace, hectic lifestyle of work.”
The couple got engaged in 2023, and while wedding plans have taken a back seat due to raising kids, living a busy lifestyle and launching their business Pearl, they are thinking about it more.
“I would like to think in the next year or two, we’ll make it happen, but we haven’t locked anything in yet, but it’s exciting to know that it’s not too far around the corner if she’s lucky,” he said.
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