Dear Mr. Tijdeman,

I am now in receipt of three reviews of your manuscript entitled "Controls on hydrologic drought duration in near-natural streamflow in Europe and the USA" by you and your co-authors. On the basis on these reviews, a major revision is recommended. You have addressed the comments raised in a clear and detailed manner, and I look forward to receiving your revised manuscript making the changes that you suggest in your responses to the referee comments.

Best wishes,
Lena M. Tallaksen
Special issue editor

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the detailed response to the referee comments and corresponding amendments to the text. I think that you have handled the comments and concerns from the reviewers well and the revised manuscript has significantly improved and now reads very well.

On re-reading, I have as editor picked up some further minor comments that I consider worth addressing.

In general: Carefully check the use of ‘basin’ and ‘catchment’ throughout the text (i.e. that the terms are used consistently). For instance, on P5, L14 you state ‘modeled basins’, whereas on P6, L1 you say ‘Austrian catchments’.

Abstract: I recommend to add the number of climate classifications used in the paper (four) rather than stating just ‘different’ or ‘several’ climate classification systems (more informative for the reader). Then it follows more natural to refer to e.g. the aridity index or e.g. the Köppen-Geiger (please add e.g. to the latter in line 25 of the abstract).

This also applies to other parts of the text, for instance:
P12, L5: ‘of all classes of the four climate …’
P16, L3: ‘Four different climate classification systems and five individual controls were …’
P22, L2: ‘This study evaluated four different …..’


P3, L23: I find it a bit confusing to list the aridity index here (rather it should list its parameters).

P8, L13: I suggest adding some more information regarding the calculation of the BFI as its use in seasonal snow regime (using the entire record) has been criticized. At least it should say: ‘The BFI was calculated from daily streamflow records using the entire streamflow record based on …’. You may also consider to add this aspect (i.e. the BFI was developed for rainfall regimes) to the discussion.

P10, L10: replace ‘5’ with ‘five’.

P11, L5: remove ‘.’ before (1) and add ‘and’ before (2): ‘…statistical comparison; (1) The Kolmogorov…(..distribution), and (2) the Mann…….

Table 1: Here I suggest referring to the abbreviations in the figure legend or at least make the distinction between the two groups clear in the table itself (e.g. add a row above the abbreviations saying ‘climate classification systems’ and ‘individual controls’, thus splitting the table in two columns making it clear that one contains four, the other one five subtypes).

Figure 1, Legend: Suggest replacing ‘corresponding’ with ‘climate’.

Thank you for the detailed response to the referee comments and editor remarks, and corresponding amendments to the text. You have satisfactory addressed all these and I am pleased to accept your paper for publication.