The daytime mountain-plains circulation east of a 2-km-high and 60-km-wide barrier is examined for conditions of clear skies, light ambient winds with a westerly component around 5 m s−1, and little spatial and temporal change to the synoptic-scale thermal fields and wind fields. Fourteen nonhydrostatic, two-dimensional, horizontally homogeneously initialized simulations, employing the Colorado State University Regional Atmospheric Modeling System, are used to study the important physical processes in the daytime evolution. A synthesis of simulations with various initial conditions and boundary conditions are used to derive a conceptual model of the daytime evolution. The simulations am run for different times of the year, different patterns of soil moisture (which affects the surface sensible heat flux), different ambient winds, different thermal structures, half-barrier height, and absence of a nighttime phase. Except for the simulation without a nighttime phase, the simulations have a full nig...
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Wolyn et al. (1994) studied this question.