Dear members of the weather radar community

You can derive the radar equation by yourself in a remote mountain cabin, but you will not be able to install a radar on a peak in the Alps on your own. You can draft the research plan for a student project on dendritic growth alone in your office, but you will not succeed to make a major scientific breakthrough in microphysics without collaborating with other research groups. You can design a radar rainfall estimation algorithm on the drawing board alone, but you will not manage to implement an operational flood alert system for Europe without having established a solid, multidisciplinary, pan-European cooperation over the years. This is exactly what the European Conference on Radar in Meteorology and Hydrology, known by the abbreviation ERAD, is about. It builds a bridge between academia, industry and weather services. It has a long tradition in fostering the interaction between scientists, engineers and agencies responsible for operational radar networks around the world. Experts meet experts while newcomers have the possibility to meet senior scientists in the field, to attend training courses, to get an overview of ongoing research following the talks and poster presentations, and to present their first studies to the community. Weather services and research groups that are interested in the latest technological developments can talk to the engineers of the radar manufacturers at their booth. The idea to establish a European radar conference was born back in 1998 at the final seminar of COST-75 in Locarno. ERAD spent an exciting childhood in Bologna, Delft, Visby, Barcelona, Helsinki, Sibiu, moved as teenager to Toulouse, Garmisch, Antalya and Ede-Wageningen, and is now, after 24 years, coming back to its birthplace in Locarno. It is our great pleasure to present to you the collection of abstracts of the 11th edition of the European Conference on Radar in Meteorology and Hydrology! As you are all well aware of, the COVID pandemic forced us to cancel ERAD2020. We all learned from these difficult times, and scientific conferences will not be the same any more: ERAD2022 is fully hybrid to allow people to participate even if they cannot travel to Locarno. The field evolved substantially since the 1st edition of ERAD. However, there is one thing that has not changed over the years: the importance of sharing knowledge and working together. Thank you for being a part of this journey!

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Urs Germann and Alexis Berne