Dear Sebastian Berghald,

Thank you for providing your reply to the online comments of the three reviewers. Reading the reviewers' comments and your reply, and going over the manuscript once again, I believe that the manuscript could eventually be published in HESS, considering that major revisions are applied. I therefore invite you to revise the manuscript according to the reviewers' comments and as you see fit. I am looking forward to reading the revised manuscript, which will be sent for peer review for a second round.

Sincerely,
Nadav Peleg

Dear Sebastian Berghald,

I have now received the reports from the referees who also assessed the original version of the manuscript. Both reviewers noted that the revised manuscript is improved compared with the original submission; however, they also identified several aspects that still require your attention. The two most critical issues concern data availability and a methodological point that was not fully resolved from the original version, namely, the treatment of stationarity and non-stationarity in the analysis. In particular, it would be helpful to recompute the seasonal and annual return levels numerically from the monthly non-stationary analyses to obtain more reliable trend estimates (please see the reviewer’s report for further details). In addition, please move the appendices to the supplementary material (i.e., submit them as a separate file).

I look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Sincerely,
Nadav Peleg

Dear Sebastian Berghald,

I have now received the reports of the two referees. While both are positive, one recommended accepting the paper as is, and the other recommended considering the paper for publication after further revisions. Note that reviewer #2 explained their concerns regarding the use of GEV in its current form lengthily and convincingly, also recommending how the manuscript can be revised to tackle their concerns. I am looking forward to receiving your replies to the comments, along with the revised text.

Sincerely,
Nadav Peleg

Dear Sebastian Berghald,

I have now read the revised manuscript again, together with the reviewer’s report. On the one hand, I believe that the analysis you conducted and the results reported are scientifically robust. On the other hand, I also see the reviewer’s point that, given seasonal changes in large-scale circulation, there is a rationale for analyzing at a seasonal (or monthly) rather than annual scale. That said, based on the reviewer’s report, I believe that their suggestion to comment explicitly on this issue and to explain to readers the implications of deriving yearly return levels from annual maxima rather than from seasonal distributions should be addressed more clearly in the manuscript. This should require only relatively minor textual amendments to the methods and discussion sections, along the lines suggested by the reviewer. I look forward to reading the revised manuscript and seeing how these points have been addressed.

The manuscript will not be sent out for another round of review but will instead be assessed by me directly.

Sincerely,
Nadav Peleg

Dear Sebastian Berghald,

Thank you for your response and the revised manuscript. I agree that we have reached a point where further discussion is unlikely to resolve the remaining differences in perspective. I appreciate both your views and those of the reviewer, and I recognise that disagreements are a natural part of scientific discourse.

Having considered your response and the latest revisions, I have decided to accept the manuscript for publication in its current form. In accordance with HESS’s standard review policy, the reviewer’s comments and your responses will remain publicly accessible online, allowing interested readers to follow the discussion. Congrats, and thank you for your contribution to HESS!

Sincerely,
Nadav Peleg