False claims suggesting that the BBC has been misreporting temperatures in southern Europe have been spreading on social media.

A clip of Neil Oliver, a GB News presenter, accusing the BBC “and others” of “driving fear” by using “supposedly terrifying temperatures”, has been viewed more than two million times.

For the past few weeks, an intense heatwave has been sweeping through parts of southern Europe and north Africa, with extensive wildfires breaking out in Greece, Italy and Algeria - leading to more than 40 deaths.

Speaking about the fires on Rhodes on GB News on Monday, Mr Oliver accused the BBC, and other broadcasters, of trying to “make people terrified of the weather”.

  • ThenThreeMore
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    202 years ago

    It’s been unseasonably wet and cool in the UK so that’s probably part of why they believe it.

    • @SupraMario@lemmy.world
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      202 years ago

      Here in parts of the south USA it’s been a normal summer, getting adequate rail and temps not hitting 100+ like last year as well. So I can see some of the skepticism but the world is fucking huge…If I drive one hour further north or south…the weather has changed…

      • Muddybulldog
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        22 years ago

        We’ve been unseasonably mild her in the mid-Atlantic. We’re just getting our first run of 90F/32C+ days this season, whereas we usually see that sometime in June. Seeing what’s going on in the rest of the country I consider us to be damn lucky.

        We’ve been getting hammered with rain, though. About 3-4x normal in June.

      • Saik0
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        12 years ago

        I can tell you that here in AZ… We’re normal right now. Earlier in the Summer is was SUPER mild. And more wet than normal.

        No where near “worst”. I remember a few years back hitting 118 and back in the mid 2000’s hitting 122… This year has been great… We’re already hitting monsoon time, where the humidity kicks the temp down a bit. Then september rolls around and it’ll cool down again.

    • @sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz
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      22 years ago

      Didn’t June break some heat records in the UK? I thought that I had read that. I’m in Southern California and this summer has been super mild.