"Why come back?" Tony Perkins muses, and I can almost hear him smile as I interview him over the telephone. "A lot of people have been asking me that question because a lot of people find it hard to believe anyone would do this. But," he says, slowing down to stress each word, "I love the Washington area."

He continues: "I grew up here, either in Washington, D.C., itself or in Northern Virginia, and until I took the job as the weatherman on Good Morning America, my entire career was in the Washington area. My roots are here—my mother lives here, my grandmother lives here and my wife's family is here. We love the area, and, at least for now, it's where I want to be."

Over the last six years, weatherman Tony Perkins has become increasingly popular, and therefore increasingly important to Good Morning America in its perpetual race to overtake The Today Show. He has been routinely praised not just for how well he works with hosts Diane Sawyer, Charlie Gibson and Robin Roberts, but also for how well he works the crowd that gathers each morning outside the studio.

In August, Ebony magazine called Perkins "America's top weatherman," an unofficial title that may have been awarded as much for his ability to handle any assignment with ease, from the reassuring calm with which he reported the recent spate of hurricane-caused tragedies to singing a duet with Ringo Starr.

Apparently, Perkins' reason for leaving New York has been accepted by the New York media; there's been no negative speculation in The New York Post's Page Six or by Lloyd Grove in The Daily News. But what do his peers say to him about leaving one of the most desirable jobs in television? "The reaction I've had from most people in the business—especially those who know I have a 2-year-old boy—has been surprisingly positive," Perkins says. "When I say that I want to spend more time with my family, they say to me, 'I get it.' All of them have said, 'That is never the wrong choice.'"

The only hint of angst in Perkins' explanation is in his comment that, "If there had been some amazing five-year guarantee, yeah, I would have stayed and maybe we'd have sold our wonderful home in Northern Virginia and moved up there, but that wasn't the case." And that is why, beginning in January, Perkins returns to his former stomping grounds at Channel 5 here in Washington.

There are things he'll miss. "The main thing will be the opportunity to work on this big national stage. That is certainly exciting, certainly something you strive for in a career like this, the opportunity to work on a daily basis with people of the caliber of Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson and some of the fascinating people, famous and not-so-famous, who have come through our doors.

"I will miss that, and I'm not saying I would never go back to a national show, but by the same token I feel that during the last six and a half years I have achieved a lot of the dreams I had for most of my adult life—in terms of some the people I've met, people I've interviewed and some of my travels. I'm one of those guys who says I have no idea what the future holds, so each day I try to live my life and do my job to the best of my ability. And you never know where that's going to lead."

The return to Washington is not the first unusual fork in the road the 45-year-old Perkins has taken. A graduate of Mount Vernon High in Alexandria, Va., he earned a degree in communications from American University, then went to work for ABC in Washington as a desk assistant. In 1984, acting on his own gut instinct and the encouragement of friends who kept telling him how funny he was, Perkins turned stand-up comedian. For the next nine years he plied that difficult trade, both in Washington and on the road, with better-than-average success, and might have stayed with it had he not met local radio personality Donnie Simpson at a stand-up performance. Simpson hired him to write for his radio show, which in turn led to Perkins' own show.

Then the road forked again. In 1993 the local Fox station offered him the job as its weatherman; five years later he was the morning anchor, doing a variety of tasks other than straight news when he caught the eye of GMA's executives. Now he returns to his first television home, where it is quite likely he will once again do more than read weather reports.

"When I was at Channel 5 before," says Perkins, "I did a number of things. I was out in the field a lot doing feature stories, did some hard news; I did Redskins previews and reviews with former Redskin Jeff Bostic. So my expectation is that in addition to doing weather I will get back to being a very important part of the show, which, frankly, is a part of it that appeals to me. On Good Morning America, when you look at my six and a half years, it's been wonderful. I have a great demo reel that shows me hanging out with Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin, and doing these amazing, fun things. But it's a collection of things from six years. On a typical, day-to-day basis, like everybody else on the show, I had to fight for segments and remotes and air time. And I didn't always win those fights. So it became hard to contribute to GMA [as consistently] as I would have liked, on a daily basis. I will have a much easier time doing that on a consistent and major basis on Channel 5."

Perkins is openly and admittedly emotional about how much more enjoyable his life will be now that he no longer has to commute to and from New York each weekend, a decision he made because he and his wife, Rhonda, couldn't bear to sell their 2,000-square-foot home in Fairfax County. And then there's the still-new father thing. As for seeing his son each and every day, Perkins says, "Connor is only 2 years old, but I came to fatherhood late, and I miss him every minute I'm not with him." There is, however, one drawback. In New York, the show began at 7 a.m.; in Washington, it starts at 5 a.m. But that seems not to faze him.

"In some ways, I can't believe that this has all come together the way it has. I'm on the career path I want to be on, and I get to go home to my wife and son every night. I think that for me and my family it's going to be the best of both worlds."