Staff Profile

Dr. Abdullah Kahraman is an atmospheric scientist focused on mesoscale meteorology, with a background spanning weather forecasting, modelling, severe convection research, and teaching. His graduate studies were on climatologies and predictability of severe convective storms with relevant hazardous phenomena such as tornadoes and large hail.

Dr. Kahraman joined the Water Group at Newcastle University in 2019, to work on future changes in convective weather hazards in the UK and across Europe. He is mainly based in the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, and particularly uses high resolution climate simulations in addition to various types of observations. Recent findings from his research include an enormous increase in slow-moving intense rainstorms (leading to higher potential for flash floods), high variability of regional changes in lightning across Europe, and a decrease in the frequency of European hailstorms, with uncertainties in impacts due to changes in size distribution and emergence of a new, warmer thunderstorm type. He currently works on responses of other convective weather hazards to anthropogenic climate change, and their multi-scale drivers.

Kahraman is mainly interested in severe convective storms and their hazards (i.e. thunderstorms, tornadoes, large hail, damaging winds, lightning, and heavy rainfall leading to flash floods) with a particular focus on their drivers and future changes.

Selected lead-author papers:

1. Future changes in severe hail across Europe, including regional emergence of warm-type thunderstorms (2025) (Within the top 1% of all Nature Communications papers, based on Altmetric). See press release from the university. Widely covered in media.

2. Contrasting future lightning stories across Europe (2022) (Within the top 4% of all ERL papers, based on Altmetric). See press release from the university. Widely covered in media, e.g. interview with Der Spiegel (in German).

3. Quasi-Stationary Intense Rainstorms Spread Across Europe Under Climate Change (2021) (Within the top 0.1 % of all GRL papers, based on Altmetric. 98 citations on Google Scholar as of Sep 2025). See press release from the university. Widely covered around the world (~1000 news outlet), e.g. interview with The Guardian.

4. Severe Convective Storm Environments in Turkey (2017)

5. Severe Hail Climatology of Turkey (2016)

6. Tornado Climatology of Turkey (2014)

For full list of journal articles in SCI, see "Publications".

Taught Weather Analysis and Forecasting (Synoptic Meteorology 1 & 2), Mesoscale Meteorology, Severe Weather Forecasting, Satellite and Radar Meteorology, Atmospheric Radiation, and Aviation Meteorology for three years in Turkey, where he was an Assistant Professor of Meteorology before joining Newcastle University. 

Teaching contributions at Newcastle University include the graduate module CEG8526 (Hydrosystems Modelling and Management).

• Articles

  • Kahraman A, Kendon EJ, Fowler HJ, Short CJ. Future changes in severe hail across Europe, including regional emergence of warm-type thunderstorms. Nature Communications 2025, 16, 1-14.
  • Kahraman A, Kendon EJ, Fowler HJ. Climatology of severe hail potential in Europe based on a convection-permitting simulation. Climate Dynamics 2024, 62, 6625-6642.
  • Wells HM, Hillier J, Garry FK, Dunstone N, Clark MR, Kahraman A, Chen H. Climatology and convective mode of severe hail in the United Kingdom. Atmospheric Research 2024, 309, 107569.
  • Chan SC, Kendon EJ, Fowler HJ, Kahraman A, Crook C, Ban N, Prein AF. Large-scale dynamics moderate impact-relevant changes to organised convective storms. Communications Earth & Environment 2023, 4, 8.
  • Lewis H, Bowyer J, Broad AL, Chamberlain-Clay A, Jones C, Chan S, Kahraman A, Morcrette C. Using machine learning to find cloud-base height: a didactic challenge. Weather 2022, 77(11), 391-395.
  • Papagiannaki K, Petrucci O, Diakakis M, Kotroni V, Aceto L, Bianchi C, Brazdil R, Gelabert MG, Inbar M, Kahraman A, Kilic O, Krahn A, Kreibich H, Llasat MC, Llasat-Botija M, MacDonald N, deBrito MM, Mercuri M, Pereira SS, Rehor J, Geli JR, Salvati P, Vinet F, Zezere JL. Developing a large-scale dataset of flood fatalities for territories in the Euro-Mediterranean region, FFEM-DB. Scientific Data 2022, 9, 1-14.
  • Kahraman A, Kendon EJ, Fowler HJ, Wilkinson JM. Contrasting future lightning stories across Europe. Environmental Research Letters 2022, 17(11), 114023.
  • Fowler HJ, Ali H, Allan RP, Ban N, Barbero R, Berg P, Blenkinsop S, Cabi NS, Chan S, Dale M, Dunn RJH, Ekstrom M, Evans JP, Fosser G, Golding B, Guerreiro SB, Hegerl GC, Kahraman A, Kendon EJ, Lenderink G, Lewis E, Li X, O'Gorman PA, Orr HG, Peat KL, Prein AF, Pritchard D, Schar C, Sharma A, Stott PA, Villalobos-Herrera R, Villarini G, Wasko C, Wehner MF, Westra S, Whitford A. Towards advancing scientific knowledge of climate change impacts on short-duration rainfall extremes. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 2021, 379(2195), 20190542.
  • Kahraman A. Synoptic climatology of supercell‐type tornado and very large hail days in Turkey. Weather 2021, 76(4), 129-134.
  • Kahraman A, Kendon EJ, Chan S, Fowler HJ. Quasi-stationary intense rainstorms spread across Europe under climate change. Geophysical Research Letters 2021, 48(13), e2020GL092361.
  • Kahraman A, Ural D, Önol B. Future Changes in Euro-Mediterranean Daytime Severe Thunderstorm Environments Based on an RCP8.5 Med-CORDEX Simulation. Atmosphere 2020, 11(8), 1-18.
  • Vinet F, Bigot V, Petrucci O, Papagiannaki K, Llasat C, Kotroni V, Boissier L, Aceto L, Grimalt M, Llasat-Botija M, Pasqua AA, Rosselo J, Kiliç O, Kahraman A, Tramblay Y. Mapping Flood-Related Mortality in the Mediterranean Basin. Results from the MEFF v2.0 DB. Water 2019, 11(10), 1-27.
  • Petrucci O, Aceto L, Bianchi C, Bigot V, Brazdil R, Pereira SS, Kahraman A, Kiliç O, Kotroni V, Llasat MC, Llasat-Botija M, Papagiannaki K, Pasqua A, Rehor J, Geli JR, Salvati P, Vinet F, Zezere JL. Flood fatalities in Europe, 1980-2018: Variability, Features and Lessons to Learn. Water 2019, 11(8), 1-28.
  • Incecik S, Sakarya S, Tilev-Tanriover S, Kahraman A, Aksoy B, Caliskan E, Topcu S, Kahya C, Odman MT. Evaluation of WRF Parameterizations for Global Horizontal Irradiation Forecasts: A Study for Turkey. Atmosfera 2019, 32(2), 143-158.
  • Kahraman A, Kadioglu M, Markowski PM. Severe convective storm environments in Turkey. Monthly Weather Review 2017, 145(12), 4711-4725.
  • Kahraman A, Tilev-Tanriover S, Kadioglu M, Schultz DM, Markowski PM. Severe hail climatology of Turkey. Monthly Weather Review 2016, 144(1), 337-346.
  • Tilev-Tanriover S, Kahraman A. Saharan dust transport by Mediterranean cyclones causing mud rain in Istanbul. Weather 2015, 70(5), 145-150.
  • Tilev-Tanriover S, Kahraman A, Kadioglu M, Schultz DM. Lightning fatalities and injuries in Turkey. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 2015, 15(8), 1881-1888.
  • Kahraman A, Markowski PM. Tornado climatology of Turkey. Monthly Weather Review 2014, 142(6), 2345-2352.
  • Tilev-Tanriover S, Kahraman A. Impact of Turkish ground-based GPS-PW data assimilation on regional forecast: 8-9 March 2011 heavy snow case. Atmospheric Science Letters 2014, 15(3), 159-165.