The European Severe Storms Laboratory (ESSL) is a scientific organisation that conducts research on severe convective storms, tornadoes, intense

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...

events, and avalanches across

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

. It operates the widely consulted European Severe Weather Database (ESWD).

History and purpose of the ESSL

The European Severe Storms Laboratory started as an informal network of European scientists with the goal to advance research on severe

convective storm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are someti ...

s and

extreme weather Extreme weather or extreme climate events includes unexpected, unusual, severe, or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past. Often, extreme events are based on a locat ...

events on a European level. It was initiated in 2002 by Nikolai Dotzek and became a

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

with

charitable status A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definition of a ch ...

in 2006. The ESSL focuses on research questions concerning convective storms and other extreme weather phenomena which can be treated more efficiently on a pan-European scale. It can be seen as roughly the European counterpart to the US's

National Severe Storms Laboratory The National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather research laboratory under the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. It is one of seven NOAA Research Laboratories (RLs). NSSL ...

(NSSL). Some members of ESSL participate in the European Storm Forecast Experiment (ESTOFEX) which issues daily forecasts of severe convective storms. It can be seen as the operational counterpart to the US

Storm Prediction Center The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) is a US government agency A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight a ...

(SPC) akin to ESSL being the research counterpart to NSSL, although both European organizations currently lack the institutional support enjoyed by the US organisations which are government entities. The statutory purposes of the ESSL are: * to advance research on severe convective storms and extreme weather events on a European level * to operate and extend the European Severe Weather Database
ESWD
* to support or organize the European Conferences on Severe Storms

European Severe Weather Database

The European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) collects and verifies reports on

dust Dust is made of fine particles of solid matter. On Earth, it generally consists of particles in the atmosphere that come from various sources such as soil lifted by wind (an aeolian process), volcanic eruptions, and pollution. Dust in homes ...

, sand- or

steam devil A steam devil is a small, weak whirlwind over water (or sometimes wet land) that has drawn fog into the vortex, thus rendering it visible. They form over large lakes and oceans during cold air outbreaks while the water is still relatively war ...

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...

es,

gustnado A gustnado is a brief, shallow surface-based vortex which forms within the downburst emanating from a thunderstorm. The name is a portmanteau by elision of "gust front tornado", as gustnadoes form due to non-tornadic straight-line wind feature ...

es, large

hail Hail is a form of solid precipitation. It is distinct from ice pellets (American English "sleet"), though the two are often confused. It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is called a hailstone. Ice pellets generally fal ...

, heavy

rain Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water f ...

and

snow Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout ...

fall, severe

wind gust A gust or wind gust is a brief increase in the speed of the wind, usually less than 20 seconds. It is of a more transient character than a squall, which lasts minutes, and is followed by a lull or slackening in the wind speed. Generally, winds ar ...

s, damaging

lightning Lightning is a naturally occurring electrostatic discharge during which two electric charge, electrically charged regions, both in the atmosphere or with one on the land, ground, temporarily neutralize themselves, causing the instantaneous ...

strikes and avalanches all over Europe and around the Mediterranean. The ESWD is the most important database for such events in Europe. Everyone is welcome to report extreme weather observations. Each report undergoes a quality control and each event is flagged either ''as received'' (QC0), ''plausibility checked'' (QC0+), ''report confirmed'' by other observer (QC1) or as ''fully verified'' by trusted source (QC2).

European Conference on Severe Storms

The European Conference on Severe Storms (ECSS) is a conference series organized by the ESSL since 2002 and taking place biannually. During the ECSS two prices are offered: * The ''Heino-Tooming-Award'' is named after the

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...

Heino Tooming († 2004) and awards excellent scientific work on severe storms in European collaborations. * The ''Nikolai Dotzek Award'' is named after meteorologist Nikolai Dotzek and honors distinguished scientific individual performance or lifetime achievement.

Organisation

The ESSL has two headquarters, one in

Weßling Weßling is a municipality in the district of Starnberg in Bavaria, Germany. History Weßling was first mentioned in the 13th century, when it was passed to Seefeld Castle. In 1810 it was recorded to consist of 37 farms and in 1877 to have a ...

close to

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, and the other

Wiener Neustadt Wiener Neustadt (; ; Central Bavarian: ''Weana Neistod'') is a city located south of Vienna, in the state of Lower Austria, in northeast Austria. It is a self-governed city and the seat of the district administration of Wiener Neustadt-Land Distr ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. Both the German and the Austrian branch work together closely as formulated in a ''Memorandum of Understanding'' in 2012, the management boards are nearly identical. Institutional members of the general assembly are national weather services such as the German

DWD The () or DWD for short, is the German Meteorological Service, based in Offenbach am Main, Germany, which monitors weather and meteorological conditions over Germany and provides weather services for the general public and for nautical, avia ...

and the ZAMG, as well as meteorological research institutes like Research Center for Environmental Changes of the

Academia Sinica Academia Sinica (AS, la, 1=Academia Sinica, 3=Chinese Academy; ), headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. Founded in Nanking, the academy supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

or the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Planetary Research DLR. Other members of the general assembly are scientists interested in severe weather research from all over the world.ESSL annual report 2012 with member list
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References

External links

European Severe Storms Laboratory's website

European Severe Weather Database

European Conference on Severe Storms

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{{Authority control Meteorological research institutes 2006 establishments in Europe Storm Storm chasing Weather forecasting