The wake zone behind the escarpment of the Bolund peninsula in the Roskilde Fjord, Denmark, has been investigated with the help of a continuous-wave Doppler lidar. The instrument measures the line-of-sight wind speed 390 times per second in highly resolved 7-m tall profiles by rapidly changing the focus distance and beam direction. The profiles reveal the detailed and rapidly changing structure of the wake induced by the Bolund escarpment. The wake grows with distance from the escarpment, with the wake height depending strongly on the wind direction, such that the minimum height appears when the flow is perpendicular to the escarpment. The wake increases by 10–70 % when the wind direction deviates (Formula presented.)15(Formula presented.) from perpendicular depending on the distance to the edge and to a lesser degree on the method by which the wake height is determined. This finding is supported by a comparison with in situ measurements acquired on the Bolund peninsula.