Both reviewers have an overall positive opinion of the contributions of this paper; however, the author responses are not clearly presented and because of this, the review comments do not seem to have been properly addressed.

I was unable to match review comments to the author responses. This reviewers seem to indicate that there are relatively minor revisions needed but because the authors have not responded clearly and fully to the review comments, I am recommending that the manuscript be reconsidered after major revision.

In this revision stage, I need to see a clear point-by-point reply to each of the review comments showing the review comment and the author response and including how the manuscript has changed. This includes all paragraphs of the review comments, even if a specific comment on the manuscript has not been made. The revised manuscript, which was posted as part of the discussion, should also be included with track changes.

I am particularly disappointed in the author responses because at least one of the co-authors of this paper has a long and distinguished publication record and is familiar with the journal review process.

This manuscript has now undergone a second review by one of the original reviewers. This reviewer indicated that they are satisfied with the manuscript and feel that the manuscript can move forward with publication. Both reviewers point out that the novelty of the manuscript is appropriate for HESS and I concur that the use of copula asymmetry is a promising approach to addressing the complex question of attribution of observed catchment behavior.

I have carefully read the manuscript and have comments that I feel must be addressed before the manuscript can be accepted. I consider these comments minor because they are not technically substantive but they still must be addressed completely for this manuscript to be accepted. I have only listed examples in the specific comments below and I ask the authors to carefully review the manuscript to address these comments fully.

The authors must review the HESS guidelines to ensure that the manuscript is in compliance with established requirements for notation, figures, text and equations. See:
http://www.hydrology-and-earth-system-sciences.net/for_authors/manuscript_preparation.html

1. Notation:

- There are a few instances that I caught where the guidelines are not followed such as 'k' in lines 98 and 137.

- The use of long variable names is confusing to the reader. Especially the terms asymmetry1 and asymmetry2 when you also have notation for A1 and A2. This is quite confusing to the reader. Also, sometimes asymmetry1 and asymmetry2 are italicized and other times not. A thorough editing of the manuscript is needed to ensure consistency in notation and clarity.

2. Figures: The figure captions and figures should be stand-alone. Abbreviations are used and not explained. One cannot view the figures and understand what is being shown by reading the captions. All figures need to be modified to comply with this. As examples, I point to the following:

- Figure 1: The full site names are shown here but then abbreviations are used in later figures. You need to show both the full name and abbreviation in Figure 1 for the reader to make the connection with what is shown in Figures 4, 5, etc.

- Figure 2: There is no label on the contour colors. What is being plotted?

3. Some details are missing:

- In line 181, are the times series normalized according to Grimaldi, 2004?

- What is meant in line 170 that the "rate of increase and decrease of discharge are not symmetric"?

- line 235, the "minimum" of what?

4. The abstract fails to mention the most important aspect of copula asymmetry in the context of this paper - that it can be used to attribute catchment behavior. I would remove some details about the two measures of the copula domain in the abstract and add 1-2 sentences about application of these new measures to hydrology.

I look forward to reading a revised version of this manuscript.

Best,
Stacey

I thank the authors for their revision of the manuscript and I find the manuscript now suitable for publication. I think the manuscript is a very nice contribution and I wish the authors all my best on this and future publications.