Two older white men in suits and ties pose at an indoor gala. The man on the left, Andy Johnson, holds an award from Equality Florida. — The late Andy Johnson (L) and his husband, Bryan Farris. Johnson received Equality Florida’s Lifetime Achievement Award on Nov. 22, 2024. Credit: Dave Decker

Andy Johnson knew what he wanted.

After his family evacuated its Tampa home to flee a major hurricane in 1965, seven-year-old Johnson built his own weather station inspired by the one he saw on channel 13.

As a weatherman at that same station, he became a hero. Over four decades of meteorology for WTVT (now known as Fox 13) and on social media, Johnson gave residents vital information during several major hurricanes.

“I got to actually live my dreams,” Johnson told viewers on his last TV broadcast in 2013. “I got to do something that most people don’t get to do.”

Nothing could stop him from living that dream. Not prostate cancer in 2009, a heart attack in 2016, or triple bypass surgery in 2022. Neither did the rare cancer diagnosis in 2024—a week before the devastation of Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Johnson was credited with saving thousands of lives over those two weeks through his social media forecasts. He didn’t mention the diagnosis when the City of Tampa honored him with a proclamation, or when Equality Florida gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award that year.

“That’s how dedicated he was,” Johnson’s husband, Bryan Farris, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “He didn’t just lie down and die. He fought, and he was determined to beat it. Unfortunately, the cancer had other ideas.”
Johnson died of that cancer last week. He was 68.

“He was the guy who loved big, gave of himself unselfishly and just truly…was one of the last nice guys,” Farris said.

The two met in March 2001 at the CitySide Lounge in South Tampa. Johnson declared that he’d just gotten out of a relationship and wasn’t looking for another.

“If you want to go out a few times, have some fun, that’s great,” Farris recalled Johnson warning him. “But I don’t want you to think this is going anywhere.”

But Johnson also had an extra ticket for an upcoming Moody Blues concert. And one date later, things were definitely going somewhere.

“We went back to his house after the concert, and we just sat up all night talking,” Farris recalled. “We had the night.”

The pair bonded over a love of music, Tampa history and travel. Over 25 years together, they built a home and shared passions. Farris works as a Democratic political consultant and previously owned a travel company.

“I would take him to the political things. He would go to the Kennedy King dinners and sit and listen to the long, boring speeches over cold rubber chicken. And I would go to American Meteorological Society meetings and sit there, and, they could have been speaking Greek for all I knew, you know, but that’s the kind of couple we are.”

Johnson also joined Farris in LGBTQ+ advocacy with no hesitation.

“He never really came out,” Farris recalled. “He just started living more openly.”

Johnson took every chance he could to mentor students and peers, running WTVT’s intern program, participating in the Great American Teach-In, and working with the American Meteorological Society.

Farris said Johnson was patient and never talked down to people.

“If he was talking to a five-year-old about weather, he talked to him about it on their level. If he was talking to another meteorologist, he spoke a language that I never understood,” Farris added. “He had that ability to relate to just about anybody.”

And most people related to Johnson, too, Farris said.

“Everybody loved Andy. Everybody. No one who ever met him disliked him. He was just that kind of guy.”

When Johnson retired from the station and started doing independent forecasts from home, the couple dedicated themselves to travel, visiting more than 70 countries in their 25 years together.

“People would criticize us and go, ‘You know, you’re spending all your money. You’re supposed to wait to travel till you retire.’ Well, if we had done that… we wouldn’t have done half the stuff that we did together. So to those people, I would say, travel now. Tomorrow’s not promised.”

A public funeral mass will be held for Johnson on Saturday, April 18, at 2 p.m. at St John’s Episcopal Church in Hyde Park.

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