News Anchor Downplays 'Lethal Weather' Report in Viral 'Don't Look Up' Moment

Adam McKay's comedic sci-fi movie starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence who played scientists trying to warn the world of a catastrophic meteor approaching Earth to deaf ears.

In a thinly-veiled nod to our own climate crisis, DiCaprio and Lawrence's characters battle overly optimistic politicians, broadcasters, and the general public who downplay the catastrophe.

News Anchor, Bev Turner, appeared to brush off the implications of actual "lethal weather" reports in a real-life situation similar to the film.

While speaking to meteorologist John Hammond about the heatwave she seemed to minimize the temperature effects, "See John, you're outside enjoying the sunshine. It's not too hot, is it?"

The meteorologist admitted that the weather was milder that day, he noted that temperatures will soon rise the following week.

He continued to describe the charts as "frightening" warning that the UK could see "hundreds if not thousands of excess deaths early next week."

"This will be potentially lethal weather for a couple of days. It will be brief but it will be brutal," Hammond warned before Turner interrupted and implied that meteorologists were becoming "fatalistic and harbingers of doom."

"I don't know if something has happened to meteorologists to make you all a little bit fatalistic and harbingers of doom, but broadcasters – particularly on the BBC – every time I've turned on, anyone is talking about the weather and they're saying there's going to be tons of fatalities," the broadcaster said.

She continued, "But haven't we always had hot weather, John? Wasn't the summer of '76 – that was as hot as this, wasn't it?"

"Er, no," Hammond replied. "We are seeing more and more records, more and more frequently, and more more severely, so yes some people always hark back to the summer of 1976, which was a freak event, over 40 years ago"

He concluded, "But heatwaves are becoming more extreme, this is yet another one that is coming down the tracks towards us and I don't think we should be too lighthearted over the fact that many are going to die over the next week because of the heat."

Viewers took to Twitter to make IRL comparisons to the film, "#DontLookUp moment," tweeted one viewer, while another user wrote, "Does the newsreader realize that Don't Look Up wasn't supposed to be an aspirational film?"

Turner took to Twitter herself for further thoughts on the matter: