Further results on moist nearly neutral flow over a ridge

In a recent study, the authors performed numerical simulations of moist nearly neutral flows over a ridgeusing the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model in a regime where the Coriolis force can beneglected and with the simple Kessler (warm rain) microphysical scheme. In the present work, furthernumerical solutions using more general and realistic experimental conditions are discussed. The upstreampropagatingdisturbance, which was found in the author's previous study to desaturate the initially saturatedsounding for intermediate mountain heights, is present for all the simulations with taller mountains consideredin the present work. The inclusion of the Coriolis force however suppresses the upwind propagationof the dry region and weakens the downstream development of convective cells.The sensitivity to different microphysical schemes has also been investigated. The simple Kessler schemewas compared with a more complete scheme, by Lin et al., which includes ice species. Some differencesbetween the warm-rain-only and ice-microphysics simulations emerge mainly as a consequence of thedifferent distributions of initial cloud water needed to produce a steady-state environmental flow. Theeffects of the different microphysical schemes on the rainfall rate have also been analyzed, with significantdifferences between them emerging in the case of narrower mountains. Finally, the sensitivity of the rainfallto the surface temperature has been studied, showing that for higher surface temperatures, the rainfall ratecan be smaller although the available water content is larger, as a consequence of the differing microphysicalprocesses activated in the different temperature regimes.