R.I.P. Bob Welti, Longtime SLC TV Weather Forecaster

Bob Welti

Bob Welti, the smiling weatherman at Salt Lake City’s KSL-Ch. 5 from 1965 to 1991, has died at the age of 94, according to sltrib.com.

Welti began his television career in 1948 at the pioneering KDYL-TV, Salt Lake City’s first TV station. KSL hired him and sportscaster Paul James away to work with lead anchor Dick Nourse in the 1960s, and the trio embodied KSL’s on-air personality for decades as the station rose to lead the market.

Former station weatherman Kent Norton, who worked with Welti for years, said in an interview with KSL that Welti had an “extraordinary ability” to communicate with viewers. “It’s something you’re born with,” Norton said, “being able to connect with people one-on-one, through the camera.”

Welti grew up in Logan and worked at radio station KVNU while in high school before joining the U.S. Navy during World War II.

He was working at radio station KDYL when station owner Sid Fox started KDYL-TV (now KTVX-Ch. 4.)

Welti was an announcer at both the radio and TV stations the next year, he said, when program director Danny Rainger asked him, "Bob, who knows anything about the weather around here?" and he answered, “I do.”