Switzerland’s federal weather agency, MeteoSwiss, is not the culprit behind Friday 28 August 2026’s dangerously underestimated hail warning. That responsibility lies with SRF Meteo, the public broadcaster’s weather segment.
MeteoSwiss actually issued an accurate warning two days in advance, while the broadcaster’s in-house team, SRF Meteo, delivered the hedged, underestimated forecast that drew criticism.
But a broader pattern of public frustration with MeteoSwiss and warnings from its own director about the risks of budget cuts suggest the question of reliability is far from settled.
Read More: Is MeteoSwiss Becoming Less Reliable? Budget Cuts Continue As Public Frustration Grows
A cold front swept across the Swiss Mittelland on the morning of August 28, bringing hail up to six centimetres in diameter, gusts reaching 142 km/h, and roughly 46,000 lightning strikes.
The damage was severe: about 40 people were injured, mostly schoolchildren; power pylons were toppled in Aargau; a truck was blown over onto the A1 motorway; and dozens of flights were cancelled at Zurich Airport.
Did the forecasting failure that night belong specifically to SRF Meteo? The public broadcaster’s weather segment said, “larger hail is certainly possible.”
On the other hand, MeteoSwiss experts had already warned about the storms on Wednesday. —
But A Separate, More Structural Story Is Unfolding
A report published in July, raises a different and more systemic concern: whether budget cuts are eroding MeteoSwiss’s long-term operational capacity, independent of any single forecasting event.
MeteoSwiss director Stefan Uhlenbrook has warned that federal austerity measures under “Relief Package 27” are hitting the agency hard. He said public safety is not directly jeopardized yet, but operational risk is rising — particularly around the replacement of aging weather radars, some of which have already reached the end of their 15-to-20-year service life.
“If these are not replaced in time, it will lead to less accurate forecasts, and possibly to greater damage,” Uhlenbrook said, noting that MeteoSwiss currently achieves an accuracy rate of over 86% for severe-weather warnings.
He added that all federal offices have absorbed budget cuts of 7–8% in recent years, with further savings required in 2027, and that because MeteoSwiss operates 24/7 with lean staffing, each percentage point of cuts has an outsized impact. “The more time we lose, the later we act, the more expensive it generally becomes,” he warned, citing climate projections of more frequent dry summers and heatwaves.
