Operational public version of the ESWD:
eswd.eu
ESWD project working group webpages:
(Login)
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Operational public version of the ESWD: |
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ESWD project working group webpages: |
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Severe thunderstorms, with their attendant strong winds, hail, flooding, and tornadoes, are common phenomena in many European countries, leading to a total damage estimate of 5 to 8 billion Euros per year (source: Munich Re). However, their documentation and analysis in the scientific literature have been relatively sparse from about 1950-2000. Most notably, a pan-European database of in situ severe storm reports was unavailable even a few years ago.
The main objective of the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD, cf. Groenemeijer et al., 2004, 2005; Dotzek et al., 2006; Dotzek and Groenemeijer, 2006; Dotzek et al., 2007) is to collect and provide detailed and quality-controlled information on severe convective storm events over Europe using a homogeneous and interoperable data format and a web-based user-interface where both the collaborating NMHS and the public can contribute and retrieve observations. These features were identified to be needed to overcome the present fragmentation of severe weather databases in Europe, and to gain acceptance by the European national meteorological and hydrological services (NMHS).
The following categories of severe weather are included in the ESWD at this time: Straight-line winds (>25 m/s), tornadoes, large hail (diameter >2 cm), heavy precipitation, funnel clouds, gustnadoes, and lesser whirlwinds. Extending the range of covered phenomena is among our future ESWD objectives.
Applications of the ESWD include, but are not limited to:
What is your potential application of the ESWD data?
If you plan to use the ESWD data regularly or for quantitative evaluation, you might want to become a registered user or, for instance, a supporting member of the ESSL. As a registered user, you enjoy certain benefits, like:
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Becoming a registered user is free of charge for non-commercial, academic use of the ESWD data. Please contact the ESSL to register as a user or to apply for membership. Certain organisations or individuals may even qualify as full members of the ESSL, this is specified in detail in our Articles of Association.
The public ESWD interface is open to everybody who would like to add or extract severe convective storm reports or download ESWD maps. However, the following IPR condition applies:
The same conditions apply to registered ESWD users or ESSL members accessing the ESWD. Registered users and members are also required to sign an ESWD data protocol and user agreement. This document is currently being prepared by the ESSL and will then be available here.
The ESWD was initiated by Fulvio Stel and Dario Giaiotti of ARPA-FVG in Italy, who first proposed a text-based database of severe weather events covering Europe during the 2nd ECSS Conference in Prague, August 2002. The ESWD was further enhanced by its present graphical user interface (GUI) in 2004. Pieter Groenemeijer then brought together a working group of experts to advise on a data format adapted for storage of severe weather data. This led to the present data format (version 1.40) which was first presented at the 3rd ECSS Conference in Léon, Spain, 2004. In 2005, the ESWD was established at the European Severe Storms Laboratory, then still an informal network of European scientists initiated by Nikolai Dotzek of the German Aerospace Center DLR. After two years of test operations, 2006 was the first year with operational ESWD service. In the same year, also the ESSL was formally established as a non-profit research organisation.
Despite all the achievements over the last years, there is still a long way to go until the ESWD can be called a truly mature database. For instance, underreporting of specific events is still notable in a number of regions in Europe. One option to overcome this is to extend ESSL's collaboration with NMHS in Europe to augment and homogenise the database. Another point, and in fact one of the major strengths of the ESWD is to involve the public in the data reporting. The public ESWD web interface at www.eswd.eu encourages submission of reports from all over Europe and the Mediterranean region.
The input to the ESWD by the public and the ESWD maintenance has led to a large increase in reports over the last years. This poses a challenge for an appropriate quality-control (QC) procedure, which is currently one of the most important tasks of the ESSL in operating the ESWD. The basic procedure foresees that the ESSL is responsible for QC of all reports coming in via the public interface while the cooperating NMHSs are responsible for QC of the severe weather reports they enter in their own installations of the ESWD software.
Both ESSL and the NMHSs are expected to follow a 3-level QC process during which an initial report to the database usually receives the lowest QC-level 0, or if the initial information is already reliable, QC-level 1. Further verification of the report including editing of the information contained therein can lead to an upgrade to QC-levels 1 (partially verified) or 2 (verified). The ESWD data format also contains fields with metadata information. For instance, aside from the pure tornado or straight-line wind intensity rating, there are also fields describing on what kind of information this intensity rating was based. In case of no information available for an intensity rating, then the event remains unrated - contrary to some other severe storm databases, there are no "default intensity ratings" in the ESWD.
The ESWD data format allows for both detailed event information and thorough quality-control. Enhancing earlier voluntary efforts, in 2007 the first part-time ESSL staff have begun to enter and quality-control reports. There are close contacts with colleagues at the cooperating NMHSs concerning the QC of events reported from their countries and in merging double reports of events which were entered to the database both by the NMHS and the public interface. These first years of ESWD operations are a learning period for developing best practices in handling the QC challenge. But taking this challenge is definitely a worthwhile task.
