Dear Authors,

I have read your replies to the three reviews received and I think you have addressed their main concerns. I therefore encourage you to submit the revised version, considering the remarks of the reviewers, which I think will contribute to improve the final manuscript.

Best regards,
Maria-Helena Ramos.

Thank you for the revised version of the manuscript. I read your reply to reviewers and I think you have addressed their main remarks and suggestions adequately. I have only a number of technical corrections/suggestions, which I hope can enhance your manuscript for its publication in HESS. Please, consider the issues mentioned below. Otherwise, there is no further need for review, just a careful preparation of the manuscript for publication.

Major issues:

- I think the text needs a strong review on the use of punctuation (English language). Many commas are missing or placed in the wrong position in the sentence. Also, sometimes, “…that” is used instead of “…, which”. I am not a native English speaker, but I suggest the authors to consider checking the text thoroughly. Some examples are (Page number and Line number indicated): P1L32, P1L36, P2L21, P2L22, P3L3, P3L4, P3L16 (ex., consider using “, which” instead of “that”), P3L21, P3L24 (ex., consider adding a comma before “which”), P3L25 (ex., consider using a comma before “…, with larger…”), P3L31 (ex., consider deleting the comma in “forecast (month) and lead time”), P3L34 (“Then, for example, for precipitation…”), P5L13, P7L12 (ex., consider using “, which” instead of “that”), P7L16 (ex., add a comma before “where”), P7L21 (ex., add a comma after P), P7L29 (ex., consider using “, which” instead of “that”), P7L31, P7L32 (ex., consider adding a comma after “During May,…”), P7L36 (ex., consider adding a comma after “In June,…”), P7L38 (ex., consider using “, which” instead of “that”), P8L35 (ex.”…, in this period,…”), P9L18, P9L20, P9L22 (ex., delete the comma after “often”), P10L35, P10L36, P11L28-29, P12L22 (ex., consider using “, which” instead of “that”), P12L29 (ex. delete the comma after “infancy”)

- Also, some use of the English language seems to me too informal (oral English) or sounds strange. I suggest the authors to mainly revise the following sentences:
P5,L4: “To evaluate the raw forecasts and the improvement after postprocessing, we analysed four attributes of forecast quality: ….”
P9,L36: “seems to be doing a slightly better job”
P10,L1: “In order to….forecast,…”: check the sentence.
P11,L22: “show a difficult to beat climatology”
P12,L30: “a long way to go to get there”

- P8, Lines 37-40, and in several other parts of the paper: it seems the authors use a very “quick” expression when using March P, November P, etc. I think it should be better explained and revised. It gives the impression that the authors are tired of writing full sentences and it is not always clear to the reader what this quick “short cuts” mean. Please, revise all the text concerning this point. For instance, P9, Lines 5-9, are very confusing and difficult to read. Please, consider revising it.

- P9, Lines 1-4: it is not clear if you are talking about geographical regions or areas in the chart of the figures. The use of the word “vanish” is also a bit strange. Please clarify.

- P9, Line 21: “issues… are only clear…”: it is not clear to me what you mean here. Please clarify.

- P12, Lines 10-14: this part of the text is not very clear to me. Please, check it and clarify the main idea you want to convey.

- P12, Line 22: “might loose” (?) check for the meaning of the sentence.

Minor issues:

P1, Line 35: please, specify that you are referring to GCM-based seasonal meteorological forecasts
P2, Line 22: consider changing to “The choice of a postprocessing method…”
P2, Line 41: consider changing “We attempt to answer…” to, for instance, “We investigate the following questions:”
P3, Line 4: consider changing to “… and the predictive one. This is what…”
P3, Line 27: consider changing to “Given the fact that the spatial resolution of the ensemble data differs from the resolution of the observed data, …”
P4, Line 2: in ET0, T0 should be in subscripts
P4, Line 14: consider adding that “This threshold varies according to the month and the year and spatially, with an average value of …”
P5, Line 7: correct “under- or over-estimation” and “in comparison with the observed mean” (delete “to”)
P6, Line 1: consider changing to “In Eq. (6), our reference is the ensemble climatology (1990-2013), where…”
P6, Line 19: check the use of two final points and parentheses
P6, Line 36: consider changing to “For the example given here, …”
P7, Line17: it sounds strange to start a sentence with “T bias averaged over Denmark…”. Check it.
P7, Line 24: consider showing which months are comprised in “summer”
P7, Line 26, 27: readers may not be familiar with the geography of Denmark. Please, consider marking in a map where is located: “the area of Copenhagen, Jutland and North Zealand”.
P8, Line 2: “… and regardless of lead time.”
P8, Lines 5 and 6: consider changing “we compare” to “we evaluate”, and add CRPSS and SS to remind the reader of the equations. Consider changing for “As seen in the evaluation of bias, skill appears to…”
P8, Line 23-24: not clear. You always use the original ensemble sizes. I guess you mean that you are not going to apply the correction for ensemble size as proposed by Ferro et al. (2008) in the results presented in the paper. Please clarify this sentence.
P8, Line 26: consider changing “The rest of the seasons…” to “The other seasons…”
P9, Line 14: delete “with” in “…with mixed results for…”
P9, Line 15: the use of “somehow” does not seem appropriate to me. Please, clarify or state it differently.
P9, Line 24: delete “will”
P9, Line 25: the title is not in an independent line
P10, Line 3: “distribution of the skill” should be explained. What do you mean?
P10, Line 4, Line 7, Line18, Line 28, etc., and several other parts of the text: consider using “statistically significant”, instead of “statistical significant”. Please, check thoroughly in the text.
P10, Line 24: in the caption of the figure you describe as “spatial variability”. Please, make it clearer to the reader: what exactly are you referring to? Variability of scores when considering all grid points? “Encapsulated in boxplot” seems strange to me. Please check.
P10, Line 29: consider deleting the beginning of the sentence and starting directly with “Results for sharpness (Fig….), similar to Fig. 9, shows that a loss….”
P11, Line 3: consider starting directly with “For ET0, this consistency…”
P11, Line 17: consider changing to “Two features are highlighted. First, the spatial variability of skill is reduced after postprocessing. Secondly, for…”
P11, Line 26: I don’t understand the use of “and well as”? Do you mean “by”?
P12, Line 6: state that it refers to grid points over Denmark
P12, Line 14: consider changing to “The opposite holds: …”
P12, Line 17: check the way the reference is cited.
P12, Line 25: consider changing to “The second limitation is…”
P12, Line 34: consider changing to “.., GCMs will be able to provide…”
Figure 1: consider adding the units of the variables in the caption
Figure 6: consider indicating the months for summer (JJA-?)

Thank you again for submitting your manuscript to the HESS SI on "Sub-seasonal to seasonal hydrological forecasting"