Since the beginning of the 21st century, Central Europe (CE) has experienced a series of dry summers with substantial socioeconomic and environmental impacts1-7. Large-scale atmospheric mechanisms and teleconnection patterns leading to such events are still ambiguous8. Here, using observations and controlled climate model experiments, we demonstrate the prominent role of the far-reaching Pacific Meridional Mode (PMM)9,10 on the CE summer rainfall (CESR) inter-annual variability. A strong positive phase of PMM leads to a significant rainfall deficit over CE (10--15%; p-value < 0.05) during the boreal summer and vice-versa. We demonstrate the implications of this novel teleconnection pattern in improving the prediction of CESR -- along with the mutually exclusive and independent North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) climatic mode, which is one of several well-established large-scale atmospheric drivers affecting the European climate11. Our study thus reveals the far-reaching influences of the North Pacific Ocean on improved prediction of the CESR variability, whose value to adaption and mitigation strategies can hardly be overemphasized.