How does climate change impact extreme events and which is the future change of their dynamics? In other words: How will the ongoing and future changing climate control the evolution and intensification of severe storms? These are among the most frequent and significant questions for the scientific community, stakeholders and decision-making structures. The project tackles these open issues by investigating hailstorms in the Mediterranean region, which is one of the most hail-exposed areas of the Earth, through the
synergistic application of satellite observations, meteorological reanalysis and climatic modelling. Focussing on determining the atmospheric variables most relevant for the formation and intensification of hail-bearing storms, we will delineate specific metrics describing the hail formation potentially applicable at operational level. The proposal stems from the 22-yearlong database of hail episodes described by Laviola et al. (2022), whereby events associated with large and extreme hail (above 2 and 10 cm in diameter, respectively) were preliminarily identified and shown to be on a 30% increase trend.