Severe convective weather in Italy: Current understanding and Research Priorities in the TIM campaign

The status and priorities of research on severe convective storms in Italy are outlined here, with particular attention to the upcoming Thunderstorm Intensification from Mountains to Plains (TIM) observation campaign. The increased intensity of events induced by climate change is attracting growing attention from the Italian scientific community on this topic. While northern Italy is the most studied, with numerous papers analyzing intense events such as tornadoes, hailstorms, and flash floods, there are still many open questions. The central and southern regions are less explored, even though they are also occasionally subject to intense events modulated by mesoscale circulations, sea-land interactions, and complex orography. The TIM campaign represents a unique opportunity to improve the understanding, monitoring, and forecasting of severe storms. The campaign, led by the European Severe Storm Laboratory, represents a first-of-this-kind pan-European campaign aimed at obtaining coordinated data on severe convective storms, and is a key step toward improving warnings, forecasts, climate change impact estimation, and adaptation measures. The value of the campaign for Italy is indicated by the participation of several institutions, both from the academic and the operational community. Among the planned initiatives, the use of two Italian airborne platforms will allow for a more complete characterization of the environments associated with convective storms, including an improvement in our understanding of the role of aerosols and storm-scale modeling.