Norwood native Katie Donovan says she’s leaving her WLWT-TV weekend meteorologist job after 4-1/2 years for family decisions.
This is her final week at Channel 5, although the station announced the hiring of a new weekend meteorologist early last week: Sabrina Bates from Oklahoma City.
“This is a decision I'm making for my children and husband. I'll share more about that next weekend, but for now, let’s enjoy this next week together!” Donovan posted on Facebook. She and her husband have two young children.
A 2014 of Mount St. Joseph University, Donovan worked for TV stations in Zanesville, Ohio; Davenport, Iowa; Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Spectrum Cable's Ohio news channel based in Columbus before joining Channel 5 in July 2021. She says she will tell viewers more about her future plans this weekend. Her last newscast is Sunday, Dec. 28, at 9 a.m.
On Dec. 16 the station said it has hired Bates from a sister Hearst station in Oklahoma City. The Chicago area native is a 2018 graduate of Valparaiso University in Indiana.
The Channel 5 release says Bates will begin anchoring weather weekend evenings, which likely means that Adam Burniston, hired in April 2022, will be moving to a new shift, possibly to Donavan’s weekend morning position. Bates also will report during the week, as Burniston has been doing.
At KOCO-TV in Oklahoma, Bates covered a “variety of major weather events including a historic ice storm, wildfires, and most recently a large tornado outbreak that produced two EF4 tornadoes," according to the media release.
“Sabrina’s experience forecasting and covering extreme events in one of the most active severe weather areas in America gives her the experience needed to alert and protect our viewers in Cincinnati,” said Jeff Benscoter, Channel 5 news director, in the release. She also created a weekly “STEM Spotlight” series at KOCO-TV, and during active weather led a team of storm chasers from the studio, he said.
Bates said she was “thrilled to join the incredibly talented team at WLWT and to return to the Midwest. The people and culture here are unmatched, and I couldn’t be happier to call Cincinnati and the Tri-State my new home.”
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