It is a collaborative project including Italy, Czechia, and the Netherlands.
The Tooming Award is the ESSL award with the longest tradition. It fosters the idea of pan-European collaboration in the severe storms research community.
The Heino Tooming award was instigated in 2007 in the memory of the outstanding Estonian scientist Prof. Dr. Heino Tooming (see photo to the right). Eligible is any excellent scientific presentation at the European Conference on Severe Storms (ECSS) by a group led by a European scientist and involving collaborators from at least one other European country, fostering in this way collaboration across this continent in the field of severe weather research.
We thank our local organizing partner, the KNMI – Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, EUMETSAT, and the European Meteorological Society for their support in making this conference possible.
Official ECSS2025 Conference Photo (photo credit: ESSL, Igor Laskowski)
Next to the record numbers, many participants have been very pleased about the outstanding scientific excellence presented at the conference by a highly dynamic and competitive research community.
The 𝗡𝗶𝗸𝗼𝗹𝗮𝗶 𝗗𝗼𝘁𝘇𝗲𝗸 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱, the most prestigious prize in the severe weather research community, is presented every second year in memory of ESSL’s founding father, Dr. Nikolai Dotzek, for an outstanding contribution to the science of severe storms.
This year, the Nikolai Dotzek Award went to Professor Yvette Richardson (Penn State University, US) for her outstanding contributions to understanding tornadogenesis and supercell dynamics and for her immeasurable impact on science through supervising students who have gone on to develop impressive research careers of their own.
Nikolai Dotzek Award Ceremony at the ECSS2025 Conference Dinner on 19 November 2025 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. From left to right: Alois Holzer, ESSL; Michou Baart de la Faille, ESSL; Yvette Richardson, Penn State University – Nikolai Dotzek Awardee 2025; Bogdan Antonescu, ESSL; Pieter Groenemeijer, ESSL. Photo: ESSL, Igor Laskowski.
Professor Richardson’s research encompasses the complete spectrum of severe convective storms. Her research integrates state-of-the-art numerical modeling with cutting-edge observational approaches to understand storm formation and evolution. Her modeling studies have systematically investigated how temporal and spatial variations in environmental parameters influence supercell strength, rotation, and longevity.
On the observational side, she has used mobile radars to capture the fine-scale structure of supercells, and working with Prof. Paul Markowski, pioneered pseudo-Lagrangian balloon-borne sensors that provide three-dimensional in-situ thermodynamic observations within supercells.
Her leadership in major field campaigns (e.g., VORTEX2) has fundamentally advanced understanding of the discriminators between tornadic and non-tornadic supercells, addressing one of the field’s most challenging forecasting problems. Beyond research, she co-authored the definitive textbook “Mesoscale Meteorology in Midlatitudes” (2010), now the standard reference for graduate education in this field worldwide.
For this accumulation of important achievements, it is ESSL’s pleasure to award Professor Richardson the 2025 Nikolai Dotzek Award.
A full day of the European Conference on Severe Storms was dedicated to the new MTG satellites and related topics. EUMETSAT as a co-sponsor of the ECSS and the ESSL were happy to see the strong interest and ongoing user uptake of the novel data. A record number of ECSS participants is a clear sign of the importance of this topic.
EUMETSAT representatives and conference organizers at the ECSS2025 stage (from left to right: Alwin Haklander, KNMI; Rutger Boonstra, KNMI; Michou Baart de la Faille, KNMI and ESSL; Pieter Groenemeijer, ESSL; Stephan Bojinski, EUMETSAT; Natasa Strelec Mahovic, EUMETSAT; Tanja Renko, ESSL; Alois Holzer, ESSL). Photo: ESSL, Igor Laskowski.
On 21 November, a forecaster workshop on MTG is offered. 70 forecasters from all over Europe are registered for that event.
Monika Feldmann is the awardee of the EMS YSCA. The award was presented to her at the occasion of the ECSS2025 conference dinner in Utrecht, the Netherlands, by ESSL officials on behalf of the European Meteorological Society.
From right to left: Monika Feldmann, University of Bern – awardee of the EMS YSCA; Bogdan Antonescu, ESSL; Alois Holzer, ESSL; Tanja Renko, ESSL; Michou Baart de la Faille, ESSL; Pieter Groenemeijer, ESSL. Photo credit: ESSL, Igor Laskowski.
The scientific programme for the European Conference on Severe Storms was published on 8 August. Corresponding emails were sent to the contributing authors and co-authors.
The submissions promise a high-quality and diverse scientific programme. 220 posters and 82 oral presentations were selected by the Scientific Programme Committee (SPC) chaired by Dr Kelly Lombardo. In many cases, the decision was not easy. The ESSL would like to thank all members of the SPC for their important voluntary work.
In addition to the presentations, a panel discussion on the various improvements and knock-on effects for nowcasting expected from MTG is scheduled for late Tuesday afternoon during the conference week.
On Wednesday, a panel discussion will be held to assess the rich legacy of Dr Chuck Doswell who passed away earlier this year.
Due to the slight delay in finalizing the programme, the deadline for the “Early Registration” fees has been postponed to 25 August at 12 UTC. More information on the registration process can be found here.
The European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) will receive an update of its user interface. The relaunch is scheduled for 27 August 2025.
All active users have been informed accordingly. More information on the new capabilities we will publish with the next ESSL Newsletter due end of September.
Upon multiple request, the abstract submission deadline has been postponed to June 15, 2025.
15 June is the final deadline, there will be no further extensions.
We cordially invite you to submit a contribution for the 12th European Conference on Severe Storms, which will take place in Utrecht, the Netherlands, from 17 to 21 November 2025.
Please note that for travel support applications, the deadline remains 6 June 2025.
A direct link to the abstract submission tool you can find here.
The ECSS Scientific Program Committee, ESSL and its partners are preparing a high-level scientific program for you and looking forward to your participation. Please submit your contribution in time.
The ESSL Weather Data Displayer has been a success story.
Since 2012, hundreds of forecasters have found it useful, especially for, but
not limited to, forecasting severe convective storms. The Displayer has been used
at numerous courses and testbeds and had been developed based on feedback
received from forecasters from across Europe and from overseas. The main
developer of the Displayer is ESSL Director Dr. Pieter Groenemeijer.
In the past years, ESSL was asked by national and regional
weather services, international organizations, universities and research
institutes to make the Displayer available to them. Starting in 2025, the
Displayer is ready to be licenced to users. Which data sets are included within
the Displayer depends on the licence model and on the pre-existing access
rights of the user to restricted third party data, for example certain products
from ECMWF and EUMETSAT.
Screenshot of the ESSL Weather Data Displayer on 28 February 2025. ECMWF CAPE and 0-6 km shear chosen for C-Med domain and forecast time step 2 March 2025 03:00 UTC. Model sounding tool switched on for location south of Sardegna.
The ESSL and KNMI invite you to the 12th European Conference on Severe Storms to be held 17-21 November 2025 in Utrecht in the Netherlands.
The Second Announcement and Call for Papers (PDF) is available here.
The ECSS2025 webpage including registration and abstract submission pages is linked here.
Travel support for students and early career scientists will be available from both ESSL and our co-sponsor EMS (via their Young Scientist Conference Award). In addition, a new and attractive student registration fee is introduced for 290 EUR only.
