Effects of severe weather can be costly in terms of destruction to property and tragic loss of life. The causes are usually deep depressions, active fronts, tornadoes, and severe local storms that can result in heavy rains, flash floods, destructive winds, hail damage, lightning damage, freezing rain, prolonged snowfalls and wind-driven blizzards depending on season.
Some storms traverse national frontiers; others are local in nature. To improve climatological knowledge and to help with storm prediction, scientific cooperation on a pan-European scale is the ideal and worthy aim. Crucial are retrospective, profound atmospheric and thermodynamic analyses together with critical post-forecasting inquiry and debate. Thorough site investigations of the severest storms are recommended, if not indeed essential. Databanks of major hazards (tornadoes, hail, floods, snowstorms, etc.) have been compiled for many years in some countries of Europe, while many other countries aspire to similar aims. This is done either by collecting and analysing data through local national networks or by affiliating to a central international organisation.
Original papers on any of the foregoing matters are welcome.
Moreover, besides preparing and discussing specific climatologies concerning storm formation for hail, tornadoes, electrical discharges etc. in geographical-specific regions, suitable papers would include especially (1) theoretical and experimental research -- as with radar and satellite studies, and with Doppler radar methodologies -- on supercell thunderstorms and mesocyclones, and (2) synthetic climatologies, as based on simulated mesoscale convective systems for climate studies.
Seeing that one of the ultimate aims is to improve forecasting skills, and another is to determine specific risk factors for various regions of Europe according to season and local geography, papers on advances in techniques and successes in these fields are particularly welcome.