I thank the authors for the detailed reply to the comments made by the two reviewers. I encourage them to work on the major revision as indicated and to propose a revised version for reconsideration.

In the revised version, I suggest the authors to notably pay attention to revisions related to making methods clearer, as it is very important to allow a correct evaluation of the results obtained.

Moreover, I have not understood very well the authors' reply to reviewer#2 about "Tables 8 and 9, where it seems that the prediction model performs better when forecasting the 2009/2010 drought in Southwest China than in simulating it." Particularly, I did not understand the explanation on "unbelievable uncertainties". Please, make sure that this point is addressed more clearly in the revised version.

Dear Authors,

Both referees considered that the revised version of your paper improved significantly your original manuscript. I agree with them and thank you for having considered their comments carefully.

These second referee reports point out to some additional minor issues that need to be considered before publication (see below and attached file). Please, make sure you address these issues. I will review this final version and evaluate your reply to their comments.

Thank you again and I am looking forward to receiving your final manuscript.

Best regards,
Maria-Helena Ramos.

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Referee #1 report: attached file

Referee #2 report:

General comment

I want to thank the authors for thoroughly taking into account the comments made by the other reviewer and myself in this revision. The changes have substantially improved the quality of the paper and now propose a clear overview of the different (and numerous) work steps presented. More specifically, I really appreciate Figures 1 and 4 as they answer many of the questions I had after reading the first manuscript.

The significant changes, which I am satisfied with, have considerably increased the length of the paper: 8 more pages in the revised version than in the original manuscript. As a general comment, I would advise authors to cut text where possible, even though I understand that it may be difficult to fit the new and relevant information into a shorter paper. Possible suggestions include: removing Figure 3, removing Figure 6 because Figure 7 and Table 4 apply in a very clear way the theoretical cases of Figure 6 to the studied drought events.

Minor comment

Lines 70-74: Point (3) and point (4) could be inversed to follow the new structure of the paper.

Dear authors,

thank you for your submission. I read carefully the answers to the reviewers and the revised version, and I have just some minor technical corrections, which I hope will help in the preparation of the final version for publication. The suggestions can be found in the attached file (no further review will be needed).

Thank you again for submitting to the Special Issue "Sub-seasonal to seasonal hydrological forecasting".

Best regards,
Maria-Helena Ramos