The Alaiz experiment: untangling multi-scale stratified flows over complex terrain

Abstract

We present novel measurements from a field campaign that aims to characterize multi-scale flow patterns, ranging from 0.1 to 10 km in a time-resolved manner, in a mountainous region in northwestern Spain with a mountain–valley–ridge configuration. We select two flow cases where topographic-flow interactions were measured by five synchronized scanning Doppler wind lidars along a 10 km transect line that includes a cross section of the valley. We observed a hydraulic jump in the lee side of the mountain. For this case, the Froude number transition from supercritical (>1) at the mountain to subcritical (<1) at the valley is in agreement with previous experiments at a smaller scale. For a 1-year period, the measurements show such a transition about 10 % of the time, indicating a possible high occurrence of hydraulic jumps. The second flow case presents valley winds that are decoupled from the northerly flow aloft and show a stratified layered pattern, which is well captured by the lidar scans and complementary ground-based observations. These measurements can aid the evaluation of multi-scale numerical models as well as improve our knowledge with regards to mountain meteorology.