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Diurnal mountain winds precondition the environment for deep moist convection through horizontal and vertical transport of heat and moisture. They also play a key role in convection initiation, especially in strongly inhibited environments, by lifting air parcels above the level of free convection. Despite its relevance, the impact of these thermally-driven circulations on convection initiation has yet to be examined systematically. Using idealized large-eddy simulations with the WRF model, we study the effect of cross-valley circulations on convection initiation under synoptically undisturbed and convectively inhibited conditions, considering quasi-2D mountain ranges of different heights and widths. In particular, we contrast convection initiation over relatively steep mountains (20 % average slope) and moderately steep ones (10 %). One distinctive finding is that, under identical environmental conditions, relatively steep mountain ranges lead to a delayed onset and lower intensity of deep moist convection, although they cause stronger thermal updrafts at ridge tops. This finding cannot be explained considering the temporal evolution of convective indices, such as convective inhibition and convective available potential energy. Analysis of the ridgetop moisture budget reveals the competing effects of moisture advection by the mean thermally-driven circulation and turbulent moisture transport. In general, at mountaintops, the divergence of the turbulent moisture flux offsets the convergence of the advective moisture flux almost entirely. The weaker total moistening found over steep mountains can be explained by considering that buoyant updrafts over their ridgetops are on average relatively narrow. Thus, they are more strongly affected by the turbulent entrainment of environmental air, which depletes their moisture and cloud water content and makes them less effective at initiating deep convection. In our simulations, convective updrafts over moderately steep mountains, on the other hand, gain more moisture from the vapor flux at cloud base and lose less moisture due to horizontal vapor fluxes over the course of the day, leading to significantly higher moisture accumulation. The precipitation efficiency, a measure of how much of the condensed water eventually precipitates, is also considerably larger over the moderately steep mountains. The weaker convection over steep mountains is a robust finding, valid over a range of background environmental stratifications and mountain sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lake Abaya, located in the Great Rift Valley (GRV) in Ethiopia, is affected by regularly occurring strong winds that cause water waves, which in turn affect the lake's ecology and food web. The driving forces for these winds, however, are yet unexplained. Hence, the main goal of this study is to provide a physical explanation for the formation of these strong winds in the GRV and especially at Lake Abaya. To this aim, two case studies were performed based on measurements, ERA5 reanalysis data and mesoscale numerical simulations conducted with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The simulations revealed that in both cases a gap flow downstream of the narrowest and highest part of the GRV (i.e. the pass) led to high wind speeds of up to 25 m s -1. Two types of gap flow were identified: a north-eastern gap flow and a south-western gap flow. The wind directions are in line with the orientation of the valley axis and depend on the air mass distribution north and south of the valley and the resulting along-valley pressure gradient. The air mass distribution was determined by the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone relative to the GRV. The colder air mass was upstream of the GRV in both case studies. During the day, the convective boundary layer in the warmer air mass on the downstream side heated up more strongly and quickly than in the colder air mass. The most suitable variable describing the timing of the gap flow was found to be the pressure gradient at pass height, which corresponds roughly to the 800 hPa pressure level. In both cases the gap flow exhibited a strong daily cycle, which illustrates the importance of the thermal forcing due to differential heating over complex terrain in addition to the large-scale forcing due to air mass differences. The start, strength, and the duration of the gap winds within the valley depended on location. For both cases, the strongest winds occurred after sunset and in the ongoing night downstream of the gap and on the corresponding lee slope. The ERA5 reanalysis captures both events qualitatively well but with weaker wind speeds than in the mesoscale numerical simulations. Hence, ERA5 is suitable for a future climatological analysis of these gap flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]