Twin Cities’ ‘peek-a-boo weatherman’ ZeVan dies at 82
Barry ZeVan, a longtime Twin Cities television broadcaster whose quirky on-air demeanor led to his nickname the “peek-a-boo weatherman,” died Wednesday. He was 82.
ZeVan was a household name in TV weather during the 1970s and ‘80s, working at KSTP and KARE 11. His back-and-forth with the camera earned him the peek-a-boo moniker and defined a career that spanned decades.
In a 2016 interview with MPR News, ZeVan told the story of his first-ever weather broadcast, in Missoula, Mont., and his long career as a forecaster.
“I’m looking at the board and I thought, ‘That’s very rude. You’re supposed to look at your audience,’” he recalled. “So, I looked back at the camera, and then doing the weather, and then a couple of seconds later, back at the camera, like, ‘Are you with me?’ … And that's how that happened — all by accident.”
He described himself as fun-loving and outgoing on-air but added that the public might not recognize “the private Barry ZeVan.”
He told MPR News then that his “total wish is to end my life while I’m still ‘back on the air’ — either radio or television — because that’s what I do. I communicate.”
A week before he died, ZeVan recorded an episode of his weather program, a retro show he created online, his family said in a statement.
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