43 degrees in Berlin? The great heat wave that never came!

The extreme heat is causing the soles of sneakers to stick to the asphalt, making walking in the sun impossible and even dangerous. These are some of the media reports that suggest Germany is suffering from a new, alleged, massive heat wave.

The Global Forecast System (GFS) weather model predicted new high temperatures for the period from July 10 to 12 – sometimes reaching 43 degrees Celsius. This value was expected to be reached especially in Berlin, as reported by the Berliner Zeitung. But where is the predicted "hellish heat"?

At noon on Saturday, the weather station in Berlin-Dahlem (FU) recorded just 16 degrees Celsius – around 27 degrees less than expected. The alarmist headlines that worried the population sounded anything but reassuring: "This heatwave threatens to break all records," a report on T-Online, for example, reported. Meteorologist Dominik Jung was quoted as saying that he saw the "most extreme calculations" he had ever seen on a weather map for Germany. But the reality is different. In Berlin, it's cloudy, it's raining, and without a jacket, it's even too cold outside. So where do these inaccurate forecasts come from?

Why weather forecasts often fail

Weather forecasts are based on mathematical models and measured data that predict future weather conditions such as temperature or precipitation. In Germany, these forecasts are primarily provided by the German Weather Service ( DWD ) and international models such as the Global Forecast System (GFS). However, the further these forecasts extend into the future, the less accurate they become, as the atmosphere is a highly complex and unpredictable system. They are often unreliable, especially for local phenomena such as thunderstorms or extreme temperatures.

Weather models such as the DWD's ICON or COSMO models are based on mathematical simulations that calculate atmospheric dynamics. However, these models are not perfect—they are based on limited data and approximations, which limits their accuracy. Fine-scale events such as extreme heat or local thunderstorms are particularly difficult to predict. Even modern models sometimes fail to accurately represent complex weather conditions. The DWD itself occasionally emphasizes this, including in an article titled: The Limits of Predictability .

In the media, extreme forecasts that later turned out to be false were often linked to a climate policy agenda. One example: "Already three times more heat deaths due to climate change," headlined the Tagesschau on Wednesday, citing a "rapid study" by Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. According to this study, the number of heat-related deaths in Europe has increased as a result of climate change. "Human-induced climate change" is responsible for this.

In Europe , the number of deaths from heatwaves has tripled, with a total of twelve European cities included in the analysis. ZDF heute also picked up on the study with the headline: "Significantly more deaths from the last heatwave." Quotes from the study authors are intended to illustrate the dangerous nature of the situation. Co-author Ben Clarke of Imperial College London explains: "Heatwaves don't leave visible devastation like wildfires or storms, but they are just as deadly."

"Extreme heat that occurs early is particularly deadly," the report continues. The weather experts suggest countermeasures: "The only way to prevent heatwaves from becoming even more deadly is to stop burning fossil fuels," says Friederike Otto of the Imperial College Institute.

But how solid is the scientific basis for these statements? This type of reporting is strongly reminiscent of the times of the coronavirus pandemic : little science, much politics. In the past, for example, Imperial College London published catastrophic forecasts of millions of deaths from COVID-19, which would have been unavoidable without strict measures such as lockdowns.

Can we still trust models?

Imperial College London's Covid-19 predictions, particularly those by Neil Ferguson in March 2020, were sharply criticized, among other things, for the software used, CovidSim. Experts, including a former Google software engineer, criticized the code for being error-prone, poorly documented, and difficult to reproduce, leading to inconsistent results—even with identical inputs, the outputs varied considerably.

In addition, Imperial College receives significant funding from foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, raising questions about the independence of its scientific findings. Imperial College has received millions of dollars for health and climate modeling, for example, for the Vaccine Impact Modeling Consortium (VIMC), which was jointly funded by the Gates Foundation and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, with a total of $11 million between 2016 and 2022. The goal was to evaluate and model the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns worldwide.

In light of these experiences, journalism should be cautious when reporting on climate phenomena such as heat waves and should not again rely on inaccurate, politically biased models.

Despite the dramatic weather forecasts in the media, one important question remains: How credible are these predictions? Focus reported on Friday: "Next heatwave promises up to 40 degrees Celsius in Germany." It states that warm air could extend as far as the Main River this weekend and that in certain regions, such as the Upper Rhine and Franconia, temperatures will "definitely" reach 30 degrees Celsius. Only one thing is "certain" in life: death. And with the current temperature of 17 degrees Celsius, that shouldn't happen as a result of a heat wave.