Nowcasting of a supercell storm with VERA

On 13th May 2003, a severe weather event took place in Vienna, located in the eastern part of Austria at the foothills of the Alps. A supercell storm was reported by storm chasers, including a tornado, large hail and flash floods due to heavy precipitation, causing damage to both people and to goods in parts of Vienna downtown, which is a rather rare event in this region. For this reason, the development of the thunderstorm has been analysed from the synoptic scale down to the storm scale using different data sources, including, e.g. ground measurements, radio soundings and remote sensing data, for a better understanding of the onset and evolution of such a severe weather event. Furthermore, VERA (Vienna Enhanced Resolution Analysis), a real-time analysis system for surface data, was tested on this case study. Measurements which were available during the event have been used to reanalyse the pre-storm situation, testing the possibility of nowcasting such a storm.