In several regions of the world, hailstorms cause considerable damage to buildings, agricultural crops and vehicles. Single events such as on 27/28 July 2013 in Germany can lead to damage of several billion euros. Despite the high loss potential caused by hailstorms, which is still underestimated by large sections of society, knowledge about the detailed reasons for the events, about regional hail probabilities, the associated risks and about the long-term variability and trends caused by climate change is still limited. Furthermore, the forecasting of such events by numerical weather models on different time scales (e.g. nowcasting) is still affected by large uncertainties.

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research), the Mobiliar Lab for Natural Risks and the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Bern, together with the weather services MeteoSwiss and the German Weather Service, are organising a four-day international online workshop. The workshop brings together scientists and experts from the fields of atmospheric research, weather services, insurance, economics and agriculture to exchange information on the current state of hail research, to discuss existing deficits and possible solutions in hail modelling and analysis, to promote new cooperation and to strengthen international cooperation.

Organisation Team

Michael Kunz (KIT), Olivia Romppainen-Martius (Uni Bern), Susanna Mohr (KIT), Jannik Wilhelm (KIT), Hélène Barras (Uni Bern), Katharina Schröer (MeteoSwiss), Simona Trefalt (MeteoSwiss), Alessandro Hering (MeteoSwiss)

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