Towards a European climatology of meteorological parameters associated to the genesis of severe storms

In this paper, we analyse the relevance of some meteorological parameters to determine the presence of severe storms within the European domain. The exact values that these parameters take during a case of severe weather are not considered the most important matter, but rather the relation they have when being compared with local climatologies is taken into account. To do so, a list of events which occurred between 1970 and 2005 within the European domain is used, and they show how the CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy), the contents of water vapour up to 850 hPa, the temperature at 850 hPa and the sea level pressure are very related to the severe weather phenomena; whereas others, such as the CAPEN (Convective Inhibition Energy), the temperature change between 700 and 500 hPa, the helicities relative to the storm and the geopotential height at 500 hPa, are less relevant.