The CNR-ISAC Summer School, this year co-organized with the Università Politecnica delle Marche and the Università di Genova and supported by the Next Generation EU funded project "WIND RISK", was held in Castro Marina, a charming seaside resort near Lecce, in the south-eastern corner of Italy, from June 30 to July 4, 2025.
The aim of the summer school was to provide an in-depth and comprehensive overview of current knowledge on some topical issues related to severe weather, from observations to forecasts. This year the focus was on topics of growing interest for the scientific and operational community, such as downbursts and atmospheric rivers. The school was mainly addressed to PhD students, Master's students in atmospheric sciences, post-doc researchers and operational forecasters of regional and national meteorological agencies. We decided to accept almost all the requests received so far, to allow many students to attend, although this created some organization problems.
The school was organized in a series of lectures covering different but interconnected topics. Diordje Romanic (Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Canada), recent recipient of the 2024 Andrew Thomas Prize in Applied Meteorology of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, gave five inspiring lectures on "Downbursts and gust fronts". Amal Elawady (Florida International University, Miami, USA) gave an overview of "Experimental simulation of downbursts and their impact on structures" in five lectures. Luca Delle Monache (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego) provided an overview of the activities at the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes in three lectures titled “Predicting Extreme Weather Events.” Leo Pio D’Adderio (CNR-ISAC, Rome, Italy) provided an overview of remote sensing and extreme weather research in four lectures. Three lectures on atmospheric rivers were scheduled to be given by Marty Ralph, Director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, but unfortunately, he had to withdraw at the last minute. His lectures were substituted by Massimiliano Burlando (Università di Genova, Italy) in a lesson dealing with downscaling of extreme temperature and wind events at the urban scale, and Mario Marcello Miglietta (CNR-ISAC, Padua) that provided an overview of the research on extratropical, hybrid cyclones, and attribution studies in two lectures.
The Organizing Committee was composed of: Umberto Rizza (CNR-ISAC), Mario Marcello Miglietta (CNR-ISAC), Massimiliano Burlando (Università di Genova), Giorgio Passerini (Università Politecnica delle Marche), Fabio Grasso (CNR-ISAC) and Giovanni Lella (CNR-ISAC).
The students were 35, of which: 21 affiliated to an Italian institution, 10 to a European institution, 2 from USA (Princeton), 1 from Brasil and 1 from India. The feedback from the lecturers were very positive, appreciating the different expertise that was nicely merged during the lectures, and from the students as well, that appreciated both the scientific part and the social organization (a social party was organized on Wednesday evening), and, obviously, the wonderful sea in Castro Marina.
Next edition will be probably in September 2026. See you then!