The June 4th 1999 severe weather episode in San Quirino, Italy: a tornado event?

On the morning of June 4th 1999, a severe weather event took place in San Q uirino, a small village of Friuli-Venezia Giulia in the northeast of Italy. This village is located near the piedmont of the Alps, 40 km west from Udi ne and 60 km north from Venice. Around 0900 UTC (1100 local time), a thunderstorm with an intense hail fall affected the area of San Quirino. A few minutes inter (around 0920 UTC, so urce: a farmer), a funnel cloud from a cumulonimbus touched the ground, pro ducing damages to houses, trees and sheds. The damaged area was quite narro w (about 300 m) and short (less than 10 km). No injuries to people were rep orted. In spite of the smallness of the area interested by the phenomenon, this st orm is studied here starring from the synoptic scale, moving to the mesosca le and finishing with the storm scale, trying to underline its characterist ics. These analyses, especially those coming from the Doppler radar images, bring us to the conclusion that the San Quirino episode was produced by a supercell storm. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.