Tornado and Windstorm Damage Assessment Workshop

Workshop by the ESSL Team and external expert guests 

24 – 27 August 2020
ESSL Research and Training Centre
Wiener Neustadt, Austria
The workshop is focused on a special field of “Forensic Meteorology”: to determine the type of a past damage event (windstorm or tornado) and to estimate the strength of the maximum wind.

Topics:
– Methods of damage survey and application of wind damage scales
– Selected case studies and/or a current field study, if a recent case is within reach
– Expert discussion on damage assessment methods and their future development
– Importance of damage assessment for severe storm climatology

Target audience (not exclusively):
– Persons involed in damage assessment activities of national weather services, other government agencies and commercial entities like insurances
– Persons involved in the Quality Control process of ESWD data

Tentative programme

Day 1 
10:00 Welcome
10:15 – 17:30 Presentations on various aspects of damage assessment and storm intensity rating with sufficient discussion time after each speaker. A special focus lies on the International Fujita Scale (IF-Scale).

Day 2 and 3 
Field works on a recent wind damage site within reach. Ideally a fresh damage to buildings will be assessed. If not available, forest damage will be analyzed.  We can drive within a radius of about 400 km around Wiener Neustadt, including one overnight stay en route. In case of no tornado or severe downburst damage is within reach, the group will work on past cases based on archived photo material. 

Day 4 
09:00 – 13:00 Discussion on outcome of field works. Data compilation of the field teams. Drafting of a report on the results and findings.
13:00 – 13:30 Final wrap-up and good-bye.

Registration

To register, please fill in the registration form and proceed to pay the registration fee by clicking on the applicable amount below. Your registration will only be fixed after having received your participation fee and after confirmation from ESSL. The price includes one to two days of field works (minibus transfer to the damage site and one hotel accomodation close to the damage site, if needed).

Prices for workshop (four days)
 Early Fees until 30 April 2020 Normal Fees
ESSL members and employees of institutional ESSL members EUR 590  EUR 790
Non ESSL members EUR 790  EUR 990

BANK TRANSFER

You may pay by bank transfer to the following account:

Beneficiary: European Severe Storms Laboratory – Science and Training
Bank: Sparkasse Baden
Bank address: Hauptplatz 15, 2500 Baden, Austria
SWIFT BIC: SPBDAT21XXX
IBAN: AT522020501000005999

With your transfer, please indicate “Tornado workshop fee” and your name.
(without indicating your name, we cannot make sure that the transfer came from you).

Resources

Draft for the internationally applicable and consistent “International Fujita Scale”: IF-Scale as of 25 March 2017

Draft final report “International Approaches to Tornado Damage Characterization” as of 6 June 2017 by G. Kopp et al.

Material from an site survey example (F4 Mira-Dolo Tornado, Italy) you can find here.