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Jörg Andreas Kachelmann (born 15 July 1958 in
Lörrach Lörrach () is a city in southwest Germany, in the valley of the Wiese, close to the French and the Swiss borders. It is the district seat of the district of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg. It is the home of a number of large employers, inclu ...
, Germany) is a Swiss presenter, journalist and entrepreneur in the
meteorological Meteorology is the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agriculture ...
field.


Early life and education

Jörg Kachelmann spent his youth in
Schaffhausen Schaffhausen (; ; ; ; ), historically known in English as Shaffhouse, is a list of towns in Switzerland, town with historic roots, a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in northern Switzerland, and the capital of the canton of Schaffh ...
. His childhood ambition was to become a
meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists ...
and record the weather. During his school and university holidays he worked for various weather services. He studied
geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...
,
mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
and
physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
at the
University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...
, where meteorology was not offered.


Career

He dropped out of the university before being awarded his degree and became a
freelance ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...
contributor to a Swiss newspaper, the
Sonntagsblick ''Blick'' (View) is a Swiss German-language daily newspaper and online news website covering current affairs, entertainment, sports and lifestyle. Based in Zurich, it is the largest newspaper in Switzerland with a print circulation of around 28 ...
. In between he also worked for Schaffhausen local radio station Radio Munot. From there he moved to the Scientific Editorship of Swiss Television SRG and in 1988 he became Deputy
Editor in Chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held account ...
of Schweizer Illustrierte. For a long time he had faxed unsolicited weather forecasts to Südwestfunk. Eventually these were adopted. In 1989, Jörg Kachelmann bought an old farmhouse in Bächli and rebuilt this into a high tech
weather station A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasting, weather forecasts and to study the weather and clima ...
. In 1991 he founded the
Meteomedia AG Meteomedia is a company founded by Jörg Kachelmann, which operated a large network of Weather stations in Switzerland, Austria and Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies betwee ...
weather service operating over 1000
weather station A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasting, weather forecasts and to study the weather and clima ...
s in Germany alone. In 1996, Kachelmann became Program Director of the German version of the American television Weather Channel named ''Der Wetterkanal''. After two years, however, the station discontinued the service citing "lack of viewer interest." Apart from producing weather forecasts for ARD and various other broadcasters, Kachelmann acted in other areas. In 1996 he presented the German programme ''Vorsicht Blöff'', appeared from 1999 to 2004 on the
MDR Fernsehen MDR Fernsehen is a regional public service television channel owned and operated by Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) and serving Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. It is one of the seven regional "third programmes" that are offered within the fed ...
talk show A talk show is a television programming, radio programming or podcast genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show', pp.3-4Erler, Robert (201 ...
''Riverboat'', to which he returned in 2007 and which he gave up due to lack of time in 2009. 1998 he presented three shows of the quiz show ''Einer wird gewinnen''. In April 2002, ARD changed its weather service provider from the German Weather Service, DWD, to Meteomedia AG. Since then he presented the weather alternating with Claudia Kleinert, Sven Plöger and Alexander Lehmann, which airs before Tagesschau at 8:00 pm. Kachelmann became famous for his unconventional presentation of the weather. A common fallacy is that he introduced words such "Blumenkohlwolken" ("Cauliflower clouds" for
Cumulus Cumulus clouds are clouds that have flat bases and are often described as puffy, cotton-like, or fluffy in appearance. Their name derives from the Latin , meaning "heap" or "pile". Cumulus clouds are low-level clouds, generally less than in a ...
) and "schlürfende Winde" (slurping wind). He denied this in an interview with the German newspaper
Der Tagesspiegel (meaning ''The Daily Mirror'') is a German daily newspaper. It has regional correspondent offices in Washington, D.C., and Potsdam. It is the only major newspaper in the capital to have increased its circulation, now 148,000, since reunificati ...
. In January 2009 he became an Internet phenomenon after a cat joined him on set while he was presenting the weather. The headquarters of the Swiss Meteomedia AG is located in Gais AR near to St. Gallen while the headquarters of German Meteomedia GmbH is in Bochum. In 2004, Meteomedia founded the Weather Information on Demand (WIND) system in Austria. He has been criticised for his commercial exploitation of the media and describing himself as a "meteorologist" without holding a recognised qualification. Kachelmann has also been criticised for his
sensationalism In journalism and mass media, sensationalism is a type of editorial tactic. Events and topics in news stories are selected and worded to excite the greatest number of readers and viewers. This style of news reporting encourages biased or emoti ...
. He established a weather station at the Funtensee in Germany because of the extremely low temperatures in winter (up to -45 °C) caused by the location of the lake. It is situated in a valley which is shaded by high mountains, forming a sink for cold air. Local hotel owners in the winter sport resort
Berchtesgaden Berchtesgaden () is a municipality in the district Berchtesgadener Land, Bavaria, in southeastern Germany, near the border with Austria, south of Salzburg and southeast of Munich. It lies in the Berchtesgaden Alps. South of the town, the Be ...
near the Funtensee are afraid that tourists stay away because of the reported low temperatures.


False rape accusation

Based on a false accusation of rape in 2010 by Claudia Simone Dinkel (listed as Claudia D. during the trial), the popular weatherman spent four months in investigative custody before he was released due to lies and inconsistencies in his accuser's statements. The highly publicized trial ended in 2011 in acquittal. Kachelmann's ensuing campaign to regain his positive public image included publishing a book with his wife Miriam on the trial and pursuing lawsuits against his accuser and the press. On 30 September 2015, he obtained a court ruling ordering the Axel Springer publishing group and one of its subsidiaries to pay Kachelmann €635,000 in compensation for the negative media coverage in its newspapers and online news services, especially German tabloid ''
Bild ''Bild'' (, ) or ''Bild-Zeitung'' (, ) is a German tabloid newspaper published by Axel Springer SE. The paper is published from Monday to Saturday; on Sundays, its sister paper '' Bild am Sonntag'' () is published instead, which has a differen ...
'', the highest such ruling in German judicial history. In September 2016, Kachelmann was victorious in a civil case against Dinkel in which she was ordered to pay him compensation of €7,096.51. The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court found that Dinkel was guilty of indirect deprivation of liberty through a knowingly untrue criminal complaint, had acted with direct intent and deliberately misled the investigators by "testifying untruthfully". The court also found that the injuries to Dinkel that she had alleged were caused by Kachelmann were in fact self-inflicted. Kachelmann had only sought a relatively small amount of compensation from his false accuser as he had simply wanted to rehabilitate his name and prove his innocence. Kachelmann and his defense lawyer Schwenn gave a review of the trial in 2021, ten years after the not guilty verdict. His losses were far greater than the amount of compensation awarded – he was no longer allowed to work at ARD, had lost advertising contracts and had to sell his production company. The consequences were severe, even 12 years after the trial. His accuser is now subject of a criminal investigation for charges of indirect, aggravated unjust imprisonment.


Later career

After selling his shares of the Meteomedia company in 2013, Kachelmann founded a new weather forecasting company, the Kachelmann GmbH in 2014, which runs the forecasting portal kachelmannwetter.com and completes the Kachelmann Group consisting also of the Swiss company Meteologix AG, the Australian subsidiary Meteologix Australia Inc. and the US weather forecasting company Weather OK Inc., which operates weather.us. The Kachelmann Group has developed its own forecasting weather model ('Swiss HD') that provides data and forecasts for the WeatherPhilippines Foundation Inc. (WeatherPhilippines).


References


External links


Meteomedia AG


{{DEFAULTSORT:Kachelmann, Jorg 1958 births Living people People from Lörrach Swiss meteorologists Swiss television presenters Television weather presenters People acquitted of rape University of Zurich alumni ARD (broadcaster) people Südwestrundfunk people Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk people Swiss journalists Swiss businesspeople