Zonda downslope winds in the central Andes of South America in a 20-year climate simulation with the Eta model

Abstract

The Zonda wind is a local version of the alpine foehn in the central Andes Mountains in South America. It blows on the eastern slopes and produces an extremely warm and dry condition in Argentina. In this study, the occurrence of Zonda wind events during a 20-year simulation from the regional Eta model is analyzed and results are compared to previous studies of Zonda wind events based on weather observations. We define a set of parameters to account for the zonal pressure gradient across the mountain, vertical movement, and air humidity typical of Zonda wind events. These parameters are applied to characterize Zonda wind events in model run and to classify them as surface-level or high-level episodes. The resulting annual distribution of Zonda occurrences based on composite analyses shows a preference for winter and spring with rare occurrences during summer. For the surface-level Zonda wind events, the highest frequency occurs during spring. Whereas surface-level Zonda wind episodes more commonly initiate in the afternoon, high-level Zonda wind events show no preference for a given initiation time. Our results are mostly in agreement with previous observational results.