  The Piedmont region in Italy was affected by a heavy rainfall event in
November 1994. On the 4th convective cells involved the coastal mountains of
the region. On the 5th and early 6th, there were abundant precipitations,
related to orographic lift and low-level convergences, in the Alpine area. This
study aims to evaluate whether a convection-permitting model provides more
valuable information with respect to past numerical experiments. Results for
the 4th of November show that the cloud-resolving model successfully
reconstructs the structure of precipitation systems on the downstream side of
the coastal mountains. As regards the precipitations of the 5th of November, no
added value is found. However, we provide evidence of the anomalously intense
transport of moist air from the tropical and subtropical Atlantic and postulate
how such transport is responsible for reducing the stability of the flow
impinging on the Alps.
