Reconstruction of Violent Tornado Environments in Europe: High-Resolution Dynamical Downscaling of ERA5

Approximately 1-3 violent tornadoes hit Europe each decade. We use the ERA5 reanalysis and WRF model to reconstruct environments for 12 cases between 1957 and 2021. Violent tornadoes in Europe occur in a variety of synoptic and mesoscale patterns, but they share environmental similarities with significant tornadoes from the United States. Downscaling simulations to 3 km grid-spacing showed the added value of improved resolution in representing local convective environments. In 8 out of 12 simulations, the model indicated updraft helicity (UH) tracks in a favorable convective environment in spatial (+/-50 km) and temporal (+/-3 hr) proximity to the tornado report. Tornadoes were accompanied by a mean 0-6 km wind shear of 24.3 m s(-1) and mean convective available potential energy of 1678 J kg(-1). The combination of UH tracks with convective environments offers promising results for operational forecasting in Europe, and should be explored in future studies.