Hollow cone water sprays are used in many humidifying, cooling and scrubbing applications. In a companion paper by Kachhwaha et al. Experimental studies and numerical simulation of evaporative cooling of air with a water spray: part I-horizontal parallel flow; International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 1996a (submitted), a detailed study of hollow cone water sprays in horizontal parallel flow has been given. In this paper the studies have been extended to a horizontal counterflow configuration where reversal of the direction of motion of some drops is considered. These set of equations are space marched numerically and the solution is obtained in an iterative manner. The water spray nozzle was located at the wind tunnel exit face, facing upstream, for obtaining experimental data for this configuration. Model predictions of air condition change agree well with experimental data. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.