Calculated severe weather indices clearly indicate a potential for a tornado. A three step downscaling method is used to obtain a spatial resolution of 1 km with initial conditions taken from the NCEP analysis. High-resolution forecasts of the tornado event are conducted with the computational efficient Conformal Cubic Atmosphere Model (CCAM) in order to test the capability of predicting the tornado with a lead time of a few hours. In contrast to the national C-band radar network, the X-band radar is capable of capturing the hook echo of the tornado as well as the circular pattern in rain rates, because of its higher resolution in space and time. Observations from a low-cost single polarized X-band radar covering the urban area of Hamburg with 60 m spatial and 30 s temporal resolution are analyzed with respect to their ability to capture the development as well as the track of the tornado. We demonstrate that such a small-scale, extreme event can be observed and forecasted accurately by a low-cost radar and by an atmospheric model with low computational costs, respectively. It had an estimated strength of upper end F1 on the Fujita scale and was short-lived with an approximate duration of only 13 min and a path length of just about 1.3 km. The application of methodologies such as the one presented here is necessary in order to build homogeneous and robust databases of severe weather cases and high-impact weather events.ДЄ tornado hit the northeastern suburbs of Hamburg, Germany, on 7 June 2016. In those uncertain cases, the information resulting from this methodology contributed effectively to discern the phenomenon type thanks to the damage pattern analysis, particularly if no witness reports were available.

This methodology has been applied by the authors in the past, sometimes only a few hours after the event occurrence and, on many occasions, when the type of convective phenomenon was uncertain. To synthesize the gathered data, three final deliver-ables are proposed: (i) a standardized text report of the analysed event, (ii) a table consisting of detailed geolocated information about each damage point and other relevant data and (iii) a map or a KML (Keyhole Markup Language) file containing the previous information ready for graphical display and further analysis. The methodology includes the collection of pictures and records of damage to human-made structures and on vegetation during the in situ visit to the affected area, as well as of available automatic weather station data, witness reports and images of the phenomenon, such as funnel cloud pictures, taken by casual observers. It is based on previous studies and also on 136 field studies performed by the authors in Spain between 20.

tornado, downburst and straight-line winds). This paper presents a methodology to perform field surveys of damage caused by strong winds of convective origin (i.e. Moreover, evaluating the damage and characterizing its extent and intensity can be essential for further analysis such as completing a diagnostic meteorological case study.

Post-event damage assessments are of paramount importance to document the effects of high-impact weather-related events such as floods or strong wind events.

Joplin weather radar