Using EWOB you can report the weather right where you are and see what people in your surroundings are reporting. You can upload and see pictures and read descriptions of the weather at different places in Europe. With EWOB reports of a variety of weather situations and severe weather phenomena such as snow, rain, floods or damaging winds and displays them on a map. The app allows you to zoom into your region or see areas as large as Europe. The map can be animated, so that you can follow the evolution of the weather.
By monitoring the map, you can get an idea of how the weather near you is behaving and be aware early when severe weather approaches. By reporting, you are helping scientists who study severe weather and are giving valuable information to weather forecasters and severe weather warning services. Scientists will use the data to find out how they can best use data from meteorological satellites and radars to best predict severe weather. Weather observations by human beings are indispensable to develop relationships between what satellites and radars see and what kind of weather is actually happening on the ground.
Weather forecasters have to deal with the problem that satellites cannot see what happens under a storm cloud, radars do not scan close to the earth’s surface and that measurements from observation stations are far apart. EWOB helps them to be aware when a thunderstorm starts to produce wind damage, or when rain suddenly starts to freeze on the road: that is crucial information for issuing timely weather warnings.