On Wednesday 8 July 2015 late afternoon a violent tornado struck the Veneto region of northern Italy. One large villa (built in the 18th century) was completely destroyed, several houses suffered severe damage with a few walls collapsed, even more houses lost their complete roof, while many houses suffered significant or at least minor roof damage.

On 11, 12 and 13 July Alois M. Holzer from ESSL investigated this case together with Massimo Enrico Ferrario from the Meteorological Service of ARPA Veneto (preliminary report after the event), Rainer Kaltenberger from ZAMG and Alberto Gobbi from the association Meteonetwork.

The final report needs to be compiled, but a few key figures can already be given (updated on 14 July 2015 :

11.5 km – length of the tornado damage track
700 m – typical width
1000 m – maximum width of tornado damage track
F4 – maximum intensity on the Fujita Scale

A link to the ESWD database with an entry of this event can be found here.

F4 damage to large villa in Mira (VE): brick structure with walls largely blown down. Damage assessment showed aged (and therefore considerably weakened) mortar between the bricks, leading to F4 (instead of F5) rating for this data point. Photo (c) ESSL, Alois M. Holzer

15 August 2015 is the last day with standard registration rates for the ECSS. After this deadline prices will increase by EUR 40.- to EUR 50.-, depending on the category.

Please also note that since 15 June 2015 wired payments cannot be accepted, but only credit card payments.

The Local Organizing Committee asks ECSS participants to book their hotel accommodation as early as possible. This will enhance the chance to get a room in a preferred hotel.

Although weather wasn’t very cooperative during some days, participants of the ESSL Testbed 2015 were able to test new or even experimental forecasting and warning tools. You can look back to the activities in our Testbed Blog.

General information about this unique facility in Europe can be found here.

To cope with the increasing interest in our ESWD related activities, ESSL issues a job offer for a minijob: “ESWD Key Account Manager”

For details, please refer to this PDF docoment.

Application deadline: 30 April 2015