Extreme Weather Event (EWE)

A subset of "Hazard" and "Threat" to CI comprise extreme weather events which causes a CI disruption or, even more often, a Common cause failure of multiple CI.

EWEs comprise:

1. long duration drought
2. extreme precipitation in a short period of time (e.g., flash floods, water bombs)
3. (extreme) cold wave / cold snaps / ice & snow storms
4. (extreme) heat wave
5. extreme wind (hurricanes, tornadoes, Derecho, etc.)

Definitions

European Definitions

An accidental or naturally occurring phenomenon with the potential to cause physical or psychological harm to humans including loss of life, damage or losses of property, and/or disruption to the environment or to structures (economic social, political) upon which a community's way of life depends .

Other International Definitions

IPCC

Extreme Weather Event (EWE) is an event that is rare within its statistical reference distribution at a particular place

Definitions of “rare” vary but an EWE would normally be as rare or rarer than the 10^th or 90^th percentile’

See also

• Hydrometeorological Hazard
• Natural Hazard