Linking large-eddy simulations to local observations of clouds enables us to investigate clouds and microphysical processes and to improve our understanding as well as the respective representation in coarser models. Insights gained with large-eddy simulations can be applied within the development and evaluation of parameterizations for larger scale models, to bridge the gap between those models and the detailed local observations. In this study, various approaches for large-eddy simulations around local observations are explored and investigated with respect to remote sensing observations of clouds and their representation. By adding more ‘realism’ to the simulations and defining a well constrained setup, the representation of the daily variability at a mid-latitude site could be improved and shows promising results for continued research in the future. Especially the shown potential to investigate representativeness of column measurements will provide new insights into the analysis and construction of observational experiments.