Bob Johnson

Bob Johnson. We just can't think of anyone else so strongly associated with the weather in the North East as this man.

The unmistakable Bob Johnson.

Not that we have anything worthy of mentioning it but you can’t talk about Tyne Tees without mentioning the station’s very own weather man.

So who is Bob? What does he do? Here’s our handy guide…

1. Bob is a weatherman on North East ITV station, Tyne Tees Television.
2. He is in fact the only weatherman on Tyne Tees based at Newcastle. All other bulletins come from Leeds.
3. He’s been at Tyne Tees for some time now. Since 1991 at least. Maybe even before.
4. Bob joined the Met Office after leaving school. He spent 30 years working as a weather observer and forecaster.
5. He spent eight years in Germany forecasting the weather for the army, and exercising with them in preparation for the third world war.
6. He likes playing golf.
7. One of his cousins is BBC football pundit, Alan Hansen.
8. He is not a maths lecturer at the University of Durham. Nope. That’s a completely different Bob Johnson, who is much much taller.

Well to be quite frank, just what more do you need to know?

The Bob Johnson Look-alike Competition.

Whilst trawling through a video of stuff sent to this website, we stumbled across a segment from Tyne Tees Today in 1992. During the last half of the show, Bob and Tyne Tees Today presenter Paul Frost would sit in the comfy seating area of the studio and natter about stuff (something Paul was very good at!) before Bob finally got round to telling us what was in store weatherwise.

One such link from the show, saw Paul reveal what is obviously Bob’s second job - modelling for the puppets from Gerry Anderson programmes. Which begs the question, which is Thunderbirds villain The Hood (“I will steel all the secrets!”), and which is Bob?

Bob and his lookalike. But which is which?

Sadly due to poor audio quality, we were unable to bring you this momentous report from Tyne Tees Today where Paul Frost confronted Bob with his past, but in case you can’t tell, Bob’s on the left. No I mean Right. Left… Right… Oh I don’t know…

The legendary Bob Johnson retired from Tyne Tees in 2008, presenting his last broadcast on 19 December. He was replaced by former North East Tonight presenter, Philippa Tomson.