This Europe: German forecaster left weather-beaten by enterprising rival

The Germans have called their dispute over weather forecasting "the battle of the weathercocks", although the protagonists hardly look the part.

One is Jörg Kachelmann, a former journalist with a penchant for kipper ties and three-day beards. The other is the German Weather Service (DWD), a state-funded monolith that employs 2,700 and is the Teutonic equivalent of the Met Office.

The two rivals are engaged in an increasingly acrimonious struggle for control of German weather forecasting, a subject high on the agenda in most households because of the storms and floods that have wreaked havoc over the past six months.

With the help of the Met Office, Mr Kachelmann appears to be winning. His Meteomedia company, which employs a mere 70 staff, has recently opened its 422nd privately funded weather station. The DWD has only 173 such stations.

Meteomedia's expanding network has enabled Mr Kachelmann to beat his state-funded rival at its own game. In March, the entrepreneur won the right to broadcast weather reports on the main ARD television channel, ousting the DWD from a slot it had held for more than 20 years.

Mr Kachelmann's evening television forecasts are radically different from their predecessors. While the DWD has its own network, Mr Kachelmann's company relies heavily on information supplied by the Met Office's so-called fine mesh system, which offers information on weather patterns for 24 hours. "It is one of the finest systems in the world. My only complaint is that I don't get access to it quickly enough," Mr Kachelmann said.

By combining Met Office information with its own data, Meteomedia is able to offer both a general weather synopsis for the whole of Germany and detailed local forecasts to its 330 customers, which include a plethora of private and public radio and television stations.

Mr Kachelmann launched his company more than a decade ago after being infuriated by the inaccurate weather reports he received while sailing on Lake Constance. What began as a two-man outfit that used German army weather data as a basis for its local forecasts has since mushroomed.

The North Sea resort of Horumersiel is one of Mr Kachelmann's most recent and most appreciative clients. In good weather, the town caters for up to 30,000 visitors a day.

Last month the local council spent £8,000 on a Meteomedia weather station. "We always wondered why we were managing to attract only a handful of visitors even when the sun was beating down," said Reinhard Thomssen, the town's director of tourism. "The fact was that the forecasts were never right. The money we have spent on the new weather station is an investment in the future."