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Seasoned Swiss meteorologist calls out sloppy, click-baiting journalism peddling sensational AccuWeather scorcher summer forecast for Central Europe. Even weirder, AccuWeather is simultaneously predicting near record cold summer for Europe.

Prominent Swiss meteorologist Jörg Kachelmann recently tweeted his reaction to an AccuWeather seasonal forecast reported by the Swiss online Tagesanzeiger here who warned Europe would be seeing another real scorcher summer again. The Tagesanzeiger began:

‘Dangerous heat waves’ threaten in summer’ A US weather forecaster has issued its prognosis for the next months. And for Europe it promises even more heat waves than last year.”

In his Twitter response here, Kachelmann scoffed at the AccuWeather mega-heatwave forecast:

What is particularly funny about the ‘AccuWeather’ forecast is the secret of how a particularly horrible weather situation is to develop in Central Europe, but at the same time everything will be average and fine in Scandinavia and the Mediterranean.”

He adds:

It always hurts when even serious newspapers like @tagesanzeiger (Disclaimer: I sometimes write a weather blog there) make such stories without any scientific basis https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/panorama/vermischtes/gefaehrliche-hitzewellen-drohen-im-sommer/story/26528645 … So far there is absolutely no evidence of what’s written in it.”

“Useful idiot” journalists providing unscientific free PR

As to why AccuWeather would make such a spectacular forecast, the seasoned meteorologist Kachelmann tweeted here that the dramatic forecast originates from “a relatively unknown” (in Europe) “private US weather forecaster” which “wants to become better known outside its home country without spending money” and that journalists are the “useful idiots” for providing the needed PR “without a scientific basis.”

AccuWeather simultaneously predicting near RECORD COLD summer for Europe!

Strangely just a few days later, Kachelmann uncovered another AccuWeather 2019 forecast for Europe that predicts the exact opposite. Kachelmann here, using Berlin as an example, tweets:

On AccuWeather we look at the three summer months June to August. First June. First the table, then the chart below. We note: The highest temperature of the month is allegedly 26 degrees Celsius, rain again and again – that would probably be record cold. https://www.accuweather.com/de/de/berlin/10178/june-weather/178087?monyr=6/1/2019&view=table

So how does a weather company like AccuWeather get to put out two completely contradictory summer forecasts and still expect to be taken seriously? Obviously only a click-baiting journalist could answer that.