## 1 Introduction  
Some densely populated areas in the Mediterranean basin are prone to suffering the impacts of the infrequent but highly destructive tropical-like cyclones (TLCs), also known as Mediterranean hurricanes (medicanes), a local type of storm system that shares some characteristics with tropical cyclones (TCs) [1, 2, 3]. Like TCs, medicanes are also intense low-pressure systems with strong surface winds, a calm cloud-free eye, spiraling cloud bands expanding from the center, weak vertical wind shear, and an axisymmetric structure with a warm-core anomaly. In addition, sea-surface heat and moisture fluxes and convective latent heat release play important roles in their intensification and maintenance phases. However, they show important differences from TCs such as (1) their reduced size between 100 and 300 km in diameter, (2) their maximum sustained surface wind speeds never reaching strengths greater than category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson scale (33-42 m/s), (3) the lower minimum sea-surface temperature necessary for their formation at around 15 \({}^{\circ}\)C (compared to \(\sim\)26 \({}^{\circ}\)C), (4) the typical duration of their tropical-like phase of a few hours instead of a few days, and (5) their typical origin from an upper-level cold-core trough or cutoff low instead of in a warm barotropic environment [4; 5; 6; 7; 8]. Medicanes are associated with serious threats to human life and infrastructure, such as heavy rainfall and flooding, intense wind, lightning, tornadoes, and high waves and storm surge [9; 10; 11]. Some studies have explored their time frequency by using modeling and/or observational approaches. While there seems to be consensus that their cyclogenesis frequency lies between one and two per year [7; 12; 13], there is still significant interannual variability, with high incidence during autumn and winter and a maximum in September. Nevertheless, some researchers have looked into future medicane trends under global warming scenarios, finding that their frequency will slightly decrease, but their duration will increase, and their strength will intensify, thus suggesting that even more violent storms and larger socioeconomic impacts should be expected as decades go by [14; 15]. Many authors have focused their efforts on investigating the favorable conditions for TLC formation and evolution, identifying key aspects such as the role of the heat and moisture sea-surface fluxes and latent heating from deep convection, along with other elements, such as the jet stream, the orography, the low-level baroclinicity, and the upper-level potential vorticity (PV) anomaly [16; 17; 18; 19]. Yet, the precise mechanisms responsible for medicane genesis and evolution remain unknown, although the currently accepted framework is similar to that for tropical cyclones, which highlights the importance of sea-air energy fluxes and wind within a pre-existing organized cyclonic circulation (known as wind-induced surface heat exchange (WISHE) [20]), although the precursor environment in the Mediterranean is baroclinic. In recent years, however, more attention has been devoted to the action of dry and wet PV anomalies associated with upper-level dry stratospheric air intrusion and low-level condensation latent heat release, respectively, to explain TLC dynamics in the early stage [21; 22]. Others have speculated that a different mode of formation may be at play, in which the warm core of the TLC would be the result of a warm air exclusion in the cyclone core [23; 24]. The impact of the initial and boundary conditions (IBCs) and the representation of the main sub-grid physical processes in weather models have been examined in some studies of particular medicane cases. [PERSON] et al. [25] and [PERSON] et al. [18] demonstrated, for the TLC on 26 September 2006 over the Ionian Sea, the high sensitivity of the simulations to the IBCs employed. [PERSON] et al.