ECMWF and ESSL enter into a new stage of partnership: on 22 November 2016 the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts officially became a full institutional member of the European Severe Storms Laboratory.

After increasing informal cooperation over the past years this step will facilitate a close collaboration in a number of fields in the future, like in the exploitation of the European Severe Weather Database ESWD.

The ESSL now has 13 full institutional members, most of them national weather services.

The list of ECSS awardees together with their contributions – for best poster, best oral presentation and best student contribution – is now available here.

The awards were presented during the closing ceremony of the ECSS on the 18th of September 2015:

Dr. Harold E. Brooks receives the 3rd Nikolai Dotzek Award.

At the occasion of the 8th European Conference on Severe Storms that was held in Wiener Neustadt, Austria, Dr. Harold E. Brooks (National Severe Storms Laboratory, Norman, Oklahoma, USA) has been awarded the 3rd Nikolai Dotzek Award.

The Nikolai Dotzek Award was established in 2011 in the memory of ESSL’s first director and founding father, Dr. Nikolai Dotzek, who passed away in May 2010.

Dr. Brooks has been given the award for his innumerable and diverse contributions to the science of severe storms, which among many other accomplishments, include

• his pioneering work in developing and applying proxy parameters to assess the climatology and risk of severe storms, both regionally and globally.

• his contributions in establishing the connection between vertical wind shear in the lower troposphere and the occurrence of tornadoes.

• his extensive work and significant progress on verification methods for forecasts of extreme events.

In addition, Dr. Brooks was commended for his support to the European and international communities of severe storm researchers that has resulted in many fruitful collaborations.

A list of all Nikolai Dotzek Awardees is available here.

The official ECSS 2015 photo is now available here:

Photo (c) Thomas Schreiner, ESSL

At the ECSS in Wiener Neustadt, Austria, the Heino Tooming Award 2015 was presented to 

Alexander Keul, Bernhard Brunner, Melanie Korff, Sanjay Sharma, Partha Roy, John Allen, Katie A. Bowden, Mat Said Aini, Abu Bakar Elistina, Mohd Zainal Abidin Ab Kadir, Chandima Gomes and Mateusz Taszarek

for their work entitled

“Severe weather and psychology – Analysis of international survey data”, presented by Dr. Alexander Keul. 

Photo: Thomas Schreiner, ESSL

The full list of Heino Tooming Awardees is available here.