Meteorologist Katie Fehlinger leaving CBS3 after eight years

She made national headlines in 2015 while 35 weeks pregnant, when her response to body-shaming social media comments went viral.

CBS3 meteorologist Katie Fehlinger has spoken out against the haters who body shame her for her pregnancy.Read moreCBS3

by Nick Vadala

Published Sept. 9, 2019, 10:49 a.m. ET

Meteorologist Katie Fehlinger’s time with CBS3 is coming to a close after eight years.

As Fehlinger announced via social media on Friday, her last day on air will be Sept. 17. She first joined the news team at CBS3 in September 2011, following stints at New York’s WCBS, the Lehigh Valley’s RCN 4, and AccuWeather in State College, a station biography indicates.

“The 2:30 a.m. alarm was always going to have a shelf life. It’s that time,” Fehlinger wrote in a post on Facebook. “I now need to put my focus on my girls, my husband, the goal of a healthier lifestyle and the freedom that comes with setting my own schedule.”

In 2015, Fehlinger made headlines when, at almost 35 weeks pregnant, she responded to online detractors who had criticized her appearance on the job. At the time, Fehlinger issued a “message for the haters” defending herself, and asked fellow moms-to-be to share their baby bumps via social media. Her response went viral.

“I have a mortgage to pay. I’ve got to work,” Fehlinger told the Inquirer in 2015. “I didn’t want to go off the air early just because somebody didn’t like the way I looked. If the doctor said I was healthy enough to work and be on television, I was going to do it until the last possible second.”

Now, however, Fehlinger’s time with the station is officially winding down. But as she wrote on Facebook last week, this “isn’t goodbye — yet.” Currently, Fehlinger said, she is working on putting her “motley skill set” to “new professional use.”

“Much is in the works there,” Fehlinger wrote. “Stay tuned.”