A fine mesh analysis scheme designed for mountainous terrain

Summary A fine mesh analysis scheme (grid distance approximately 47 km) has been developed which takes care of mountain ridges of different height, to be able to study cyclogenesis induced by the Alps from the standpoint of observational quantitative vorticity dynamics.The method represents a 2-D univariate statistical interpolation scheme with isotropic correlation function over flat terrain but anisotropic across major mountain ridges like the Alps and Pyrrences.The checked and corrected ALPEX-IIb data set-which is the best data set for the Alpine region concerning time and space resolution as well as quality up to now-is used to produce analyses of basic and derived atmospheric variables. It is shown that structures in the upper meso-scale are resolved with pronounced gradients across mountains.With 9 Figures