I have received the reports of three referees and thank the authors for their detailed responses to the referees’ comments.
Based on these reviews and my own reading of the manuscript, I find that this paper presents the most systematic evaluation of global precipitation datasets to date and thus will be of considerable scientific interest to HESS readers. All three reviewers agree that the paper should be accepted subject to minor revisions and I entirely agree.
I find that the authors have addressed the reviewers’ comments satisfactorily and I would therefore like to invite the authors to upload the revised manuscript incorporating all proposed changes and additions.
However, given the importance of the MSWEP V2.0 dataset, I do feel that Reviewer 3’s concern (that the MSWEPv2 paper is not yet published) is legitimate, and that we must at least wait until that paper is under review or available to HESS readers.
I look forward to receiving the revised manuscript.

Sincerely,
Louise Slater

Dear Authors,
Thank you for making these final edits to the paper. I am happy with the final version and the reference to the MSWEP V2 documentation, and delighted to recommend publication of the manuscript. Congratulations on a very interesting and useful paper.
Best wishes,
Louise