Belgian tourism officials 'suing weather forecaster over rain predictions' He said, "We have been inundated with people cancelling their holidays. From hotels to beach huts, they have all been affected. They predicted the first two weeks of August to be bad and, consequently, we immediately got cancellations. This is totally unacceptable to our members. These long-term predictions are unscientific and have been proven to have only 50 per cent reliability. It does say so on the weather bureau's website but only in the small print. The headline, of course, has already done the damage. Leopold Lippens, the Mayor of Knokke-Heist, said the Flemish Tourist Office would seek compensation for loss of trade running into "millions of euros." He said, "We all know Belgium is not California but we do get good weather. There is absolutely no scientific basis for making predictions so far in advance. They even said September would be a washout. We will sue on the grounds of misinformation. These people must pay for the huge losses. He said organisers of a music festival in the Swiss resort of Lugano took similar action a few years ago when a private weather company predicted bad weather. Hardly anyone turned up and the organisers took the company to court and won. We are confident we can do the same," said Mr Lippens. Geert Hoorens, of Westtoer, the local regional tourism office, said, "Can you imagine the weather forecasters in somewhere like Provence or Cote d'Azur telling people: 'there's going to be bad weather so everyone go and holiday in Marrakesh and Luxor?'." Dirk Van Cutsem, who runs an 80-bed hotel at Ostend, said, "I and a lot of my colleagues in the hotel trade along the coast support any legal action because long-term forecasts of bad weather is baseless and badly damages our prospects." Xavier Lizin, of Meteo Belgique, hit back at the criticism, insisting that the forecasts are sufficiently reliable to broadcast and publish. He said: "We develop seasonal trends on the basis of objective factors. Of course, they are not as reliable as a forecast drawn up, say, only three days in advance but businesses and other bodies repeatedly ask for long-term forecasts.