the MEDICANES project

EARTH OBSERVATIONS AS A CORNERSTONE TO THE UNDERSTANDING AND PREDICTION OF TROPICAL-LIKE CYCLONE RISK IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

In the last decades, several Mediterranean cyclones have attained similar cloud structures, although with weaker intensities, to tropical cyclones. These systems compose a peculiar subcategory of Mediterranean cyclones, known in the scientific literature as medicanes (a portmanteau of the words Mediterranean hurricanes), or Mediterranean tropical-like cyclones. Despite their limited number to about 0-3 events per year, medicanes are directly related with high impact weather and thus have been constantly attracting the interest of the scientific community, but also of the general public.

They cause numerous fatalities and severe damages in several Mediterranean countries due to strong wind gusts, high sea waves and heavy rainfall. There is no doubt that medicanes constitute prominent environmental risks that affect more than 500 million people in one of the most densely populated regions of the world. In this project we will rely on Earth Observations (EO) to provide a comprehensive approach on the problem of increasing our understanding of medicanes, better forecasting their occurrence and quantifying the limitations of atmospheric modelling in reproducing relevant high-impact weather.

Objectives

Rely on advanced satellite EO systems and modelling capabilities to develop new concepts, methods and tools to:

  • Fill fundamental gaps in the physical definition of medicanes, in particular characterize the different physical mechanisms that may induce tropical-like features
  • Improve the predictability of medicanes
  • Understand and quantify limitations of atmospheric and oceanic modelling in reproducing high-impact weather associated to medicanes (i.e,, windstorms, storm surges, floods)
  • Improve the quantification of the relevant environmental risks and socio-economic impacts associated to medicanes  

    • ★ Phase 2 — Project Extension (2026–2028)

    Building on the significant achievements of Phase 1 — including the first open Medicane Atlas, a community-endorsed definition published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (Miglietta et al., 2025), and major advances in EO-based monitoring, diagnostics, and modelling — the MEDICANES project has entered a new phase in 2026, with a clear overarching goal: to transform EO-based medicane science into actionable information for civil protection, climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and impact-based forecasting. Phase 2 extends the EO value chain established in Phase 1 — from detection and diagnostics — towards hazard characterisation, exposure and vulnerability assessment, and quantitative impact indicators.

    MEDICANES Phase 2 scientific vision

    The Phase 2 scientific vision, transforming medicane science into actionable information.

    Two Complementary Research Pillars

    Pillar A — Hazard Mapping & Impact Assessment

    Translating EO-based medicane diagnostics into quantitative, spatially explicit socioeconomic impact indicators. The workflow integrates Copernicus Emergency Management Service products, the open-source CLIMADA modelling platform, and the Social Vulnerability Index to produce multi-hazard footprints, exposure maps, and risk indicators for ten historical medicane events (1995–2023). A key output will be the Medicane Impact Viewer (MIV), an interactive geospatial platform for civil protection and climate adaptation use.
    Pillar B — Digital Twins for Medicanes

    Going beyond the traditional EO + modelling dual approach to create a deep synergy: high-resolution Meso-NH simulations coupled with the RTTOV radiative transfer code emulate satellite observations directly, enabling rigorous model-observation comparison. Synthetic Digital Twins — generated with WRF by nudging intense Mediterranean cyclones toward medicane conditions — will expand the AI training database and support impact assessment under extreme scenarios.

    Expected Outcomes

  • EO-based medicane classification and intensity estimation tools
  • Multi-hazard impact framework and exposure/vulnerability datasets for the Mediterranean
  • Digital Twins for past events and physically consistent synthetic extreme scenarios
  • Medicane Impact Viewer (MIV) — interactive risk visualisation platform
  • A Scientific Roadmap from medicane monitoring tools to operational implementation and impact-based decision support
  • Structured user community and dedicated ESA-supported stakeholder workshop

    • Strategic Collaborations

    Phase 2 is conducted by an expanded consortium — CNR, CLS, UT, IFREMER, CEAM, GEO-K, HCMR, and INNUERE — and builds active synergies with the FutureMed COST Action, Horizon Europe ARTEMis, Copernicus Emergency Management Service, Copernicus Land Monitorinf Service, CIMSS-UW-Madison, ESA Φ-lab, and the ESA Earth System Science Hub (ESRIN).

    innovative aspects

    Provide definition of medicanes based on EOs: Synergy between newly available EOs and models will allow near real-time (NRT) identification of medicane formation/occurrence, monitoring and tracking.

    Provide physical context atmospheric and oceanic dynamics to new EOs, which we have the ambition to exploit as trademarks for weather applications in order to support the forecasting of environmental risks, climate prediction and civil protection.

    Provide a deeper understanding of socio-economic impacts, and the underlying atmospheric-oceanic processes that produce them through the use of novel observations with exceptionally high spatial resolution and temporal sampling that are expected to complement high-resolution simulations. 

    Develop new data assimilation techniques of novel EOs and products and near-real time monitoring tools of cyclone tracks and intensity based on AI. These are expected to extend existing capabilities in weather forecasting beyond the state of the art.

    Advance our capacity to assess vulnerability from regional to local scales, estimate the associated risks, and predict their occurrence and impacts on society and ecosystems.