The climatic conditions of the northern Sierra of Peru are marked by the interaction of different macro- to mesoscale climatic features such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) or Mesoscale Convective Complexes (MCCs) and the seasonally shifting Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), but also by local scale climatic features such as inhomogeneous topography and local wind fields. The region under investigation, located in the vicinity of the South America Continental Water Divide (CWD), provides the opportunity to study interactions of western and eastern disturbances in a high mountain environment and their effects on rainfall variability. In general, rainfall variability is related to diurnal convection patterns, enhanced by valley breeze systems and modulated by local scale wind anomalies. Spillover of low-level air masses of Pacific origin passing over the Andean ridges is fr...