Mountain wave breaking, and the resulting potential for the generation of turbulence in the atmosphere, are investigated using numerical simulations of idealized, nearly hydrostatic, atmospheric flows with directional wind shear over an axisymmetric isolated mountain. These simulations, which use the WRF-ARW model, differ in degree of flow nonlinearity and shear intensity, quantified through the dimensionless mountain height and the Richardson number of the incoming flow, respectively. The aim is to diagnose wave breaking based on large-scale flow variables. The simulation results have been used to produce a regime diagram giving a description of the wave breaking behaviour in Richardson number–dimensionless mountain height parameter space. By selecting flow overturning occurrence as a discriminating factor, it was possible to split the regime diagram into sub-regions with and without wave breaking. When mountain waves break, the associated convective instability leads to turbulence generation (which is one of the known forms of clear air turbulence (CAT)). Thus, regions within the simulation domain where wave breaking and the development of CAT are expected have been identified. The extent of these regions increases with terrain elevation and background wind shear intensity. Analysis of the model output, supported by theoretical arguments, suggests the existence of a link between wave breaking and the relative orientations of the incoming wind vector and the horizontal velocity perturbation vector. More specifically, in a wave breaking event, due to the effect of critical levels, the background wind vector and the wavenumber vector of the dominant mountain waves are perpendicular. It is shown that, at least for the wind profile employed in the present study, this corresponds to a situation where the background wind vector and the velocity perturbation vector are also approximately perpendicular. © 2016 Royal Meteorological Society

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