The European Storm Forecast Experiment, known as ESTOFEX, is an initiative of a team of European

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...

s, and students in

meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...

founded in 2002. It serves as a platform for exchange of knowledge about forecasting severe

convective storms A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustics, acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms ...

in Europe and elsewhere. It is a voluntary organisation and is currently unfunded. It aims to raise awareness and provide real-time education about

severe weather Severe weather is any dangerous meteorological phenomenon with the potential to cause damage, serious social disruption, or loss of human life. Types of severe weather phenomena vary, depending on the latitude, altitude, topography, and atm ...

forecasting.ESTOFEX FAQ
/ref> ESTOFEX issues storm warnings on a daily basis. It also collects reports from the general public about severe convective weather incidents in order to validate its forecasts.Verification of ESTOFEX Lightning and Severe Weather Forecasts
Alex Kowaleski,, Dr. Harold E. Brooks, Dr. Charles A. Doswell III. pdf Reports should be submitted to th
European Severe Weather Database
(ESWD). ESTOFEX forecasts are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license. Its definitions of severe convective weather phenomena are one or several of the following : severe: *

hail Hail is a form of solid precipitation. It is distinct from ice pellets (American English "sleet"), though the two are often confused. It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is called a hailstone. Ice pellets generally fal ...

with a diameter of at least , *

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...

, *

wind gust A gust or wind gust is a brief increase in the speed of the wind, usually less than 20 seconds. It is of a more transient character than a squall, which lasts minutes, and is followed by a lull or slackening in the wind speed. Generally, winds are ...

s with a speed of at least , * excessive

rain Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water f ...

fall of at least . extremely severe : * hail with a diameter of at least , * wind gusts with a speed of at least , * a tornado of F2

intensity Intensity may refer to: In colloquial use *Strength (disambiguation) *Amplitude * Level (disambiguation) * Magnitude (disambiguation) In physical sciences Physics *Intensity (physics), power per unit area (W/m2) *Field strength of electric, ma ...

or higher on the

Fujita scale The Fujita scale (F-Scale; ), or Fujita–Pearson scale (FPP scale), is a scale for rating tornado intensity, based primarily on the damage tornadoes inflict on human-built structures and vegetation. The official Fujita scale category is determ ...

. As an organization that is more focused on operational meteorology, i.e.

weather forecasting Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology forecasting, to predict the conditions of the Earth's atmosphere, atmosphere for a given location and time. People have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia a ...

, ESTOFEX functions somewhat as a counterpart to the US

Storm Prediction Center The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) is a US government agency A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight a ...

(SPC). The research oriented correlate is the

European Severe Storms Laboratory The European Severe Storms Laboratory (ESSL) is a scientific organisation that conducts research on severe convective storms, tornadoes, intense precipitation events, and avalanches across Europe and the Mediterranean. It operates the widely con ...

(ESSL) which itself is modeled somewhat after the US

National Severe Storms Laboratory The National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather research laboratory under the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. It is one of seven NOAA Research Laboratories (RLs). NSSL s ...

(NSSL), with both US counterparts enjoying stronger institutional support as long-time governmental entities.

References

External links

ESTOFEX homepage
{{climate-stub European research networks Weather forecasting Meteorological organizations