We have received the reports from three reviewers. They all find that though the work is of potential interest for the hydrology community, it needs very substantial revisions and is not strong enough in its current form. The reviewer comments are very detailed, and have been followed by detailed responses from the authors.

Reviewer #1 main suggestion is to clearly identify the general relevance of the work for locations other than the study site. The authors address this comment and provide a rationale, but this needs to be clear in the revised paper. Please note that reviewer #2 also shares this concern. The motivation and novel scientific contribution of the paper needs to be clearly stated in the introduction

Reviewer #2 has listed several additional major concerns, including the need to account for uncertainty of the Fwy estimates, and to justify the use of the 2% threshold value (please note that this concerns is again shared by all reviewers).

In addition to sharing the previous concerns, reviewer #3, has also identified the need to strengthen the discussion on the relevance of the results resulting from testing the three hypotheses (which is also shared by reviewer #2).

In summary, the reviewers have provided a number of helpful comments that can help the authors improve the analysis. It is clear from the authors’ responses that the revised paper will include new results and analysis aiming at addressing the main concerns of the reviewers. Please also note that the other minor comments of the reviewers need to be considered when preparing the revised manuscript.

Dear authors,
We have now received the comments of the two reviewers on your revised manuscript.
While one of the reviewers thinks that the revised manuscript has been improved and all comments on the previous version satisfactory addressed. However, the other reviewer has still many concerns on the methodology and results that need to be appropriately addressed before considering publication. I think that the report shows that the reviewer has put significant effort to provide extremely valuable feedback that will give you the opportunity to further improve your work and its value for the hydrology community. I hope you find these comments useful.

We have now received the comments from an additional referee. After my own careful assessment of the revised manuscript and the response letter to the comments of the previous reviewers, I agree with the referee that the manuscript has been greatly improved and is now ready for publication.