The fascination for extreme weather has two sides.

On the one hand, Anja Rädler admires the forces of nature.

During a thunderstorm, you can marvel at the powerful effects of the laws of physics.

On the other hand, they inspire respect when directly exposed to them.

Rädler likes both sides - especially when she can watch the spectacle from a distance.

The georisk researcher at reinsurer Munich Re sometimes drives to strong weather events with colleagues to view them from afar.

Philip Krohn

Editor in business, responsible for "People and Business".

  • Follow I follow

But once she didn't manage to keep her distance.

On a trip through India's Rajasthan, she booked a three-day camel trek into the desert towards the Pakistan border.

Nothing came of the three days, because on the first day there was such a strong thunderstorm that she was soaked to the skin under a tarpaulin in a short time.

Lightning struck 300 meters away.

"I love thunderstorms and outflows of cold air before the thunderstorm comes," says Rädler.

Being so close to the forces of nature, on her trip to India she quickly thought about what to do in theory in such a case.

Normally, she observes thunderstorms from the car (ideal) or from the apartment (low risk), but from such a close range, the research object took on a different meaning.

"It was respect

Rädler found her employer in the rare situation of being able to pursue scientific research interests in a commercial context.

Already at school she had a soft spot for physics and mathematics – above all: a practical interest.

That's why the native of Munich, after completing her bachelor's degree in physics, switched to meteorology in her hometown for her master's degree.

Cooperation and mailing lists pave the way

“Everything is tangible, conventional physics is abstract.

The determining factors are fascinating and not yet fully explained.” She was able to lay the foundations at the German Aerospace Center.

A five-year project by the center with the European Severe Storms Laboratory and the reinsurer Munich Re, which is represented in the index of the most important German stock exchange stocks, made her familiar with the mindset of her future employer.

"Previously, Munich Re was not on my radar at all." Cooperation with universities can help.

During the five-year project, Rädler was employed by the reinsurer as a scientist and acquired her doctorate while working.

“When I was studying, I made up my mind to stay in science.

After my master’s thesis, I wanted to deal with unanswered questions,” she says.

She had seen through a mailing list that students were being sought to research extreme weather events in Asia.

The topic started with the topic of her master's thesis.

"Previously, I had not thought that pure research work in the company was possible."

Rädler is now part of Munich Re's "storm team".

The first thing she does in the morning is get an overview of the storm events around the world.

She is also aware of small events that the media do not report on.

“We need to know the predictions and do event analysis: were they extraordinary?

What return periods are to be assumed?” Reinsurers must be held accountable when loss events accumulate and it has been agreed with primary insurers that they are responsible for losses above a certain level.

In the case of hurricanes or earthquakes, a large part of the damage is often left with them.

Tips for the government

With the help of weather data, Rädler's storm team wants to create more and more precise storm models.

Unlike in science, it's all about the extremes.

Weather data is linked to information about economic values ​​in a damage area.

This is because reinsurers are often forced to make a quick estimate of what damage can be expected for the customers of the primary insurers.