Your manuscript on "Snow processes in mountain forests: Interception modeling for coarse-scale applications" has now been reviewed by two referees. They both seem to agree in their assessment that the work is of potential interest and sufficient quality, but that several issues will need to be addressed before the manuscript can be considered for publication in HESS. I have classified these comments as revisions rather than major revisions because new analysis might not be necessary, but given the nature of the comments they might still require substantial effort. In any case the revised manuscript will be returned to the referees for consultation.

When revision your manuscript, please pay particular attention to the following aspects:
- Both referees comment on the use of snow depth of SWE. This is a critical issue. It is important to realize and recognize that snow depth is not a conservative quantity, and that there is a risk for bias when comparing snow depth observations between places with different microclimate conditions. This does not mean that there is no value in making a model based on snow depth observations, but the right arguments should be used to motivate this choice. This is not to reduce "any potential error when converting measured HS values to SWE." as is stated in the manuscript. The real reason (I guess) is that SWE observations are not available because they require more effort in sampling. But that does not make them less relevant. So please be clear in motivating the choices, and acknowledge any potential limitation and the fact that all models will use SWE and not snow depth.
- The choice for the functional relationships that are fitted to be data need to be motivated, and if possible evaluated against alternative models. There should be some objective criteria behind the choice for a particular functional form.
- Please pay particular attention to the writing. If possible, let the manuscript be proof-read by a native speaker/colleague.

I am looking forward to receiving a revised version of the manuscript. Let me know if you have any questions regarding the reviews or the revision.

Best regards

Ryan Teuling

Your manuscript has again been seen by 2 referees. While one reviewer has no more comments and gives a positive recommendation for acceptance, the other reviewer is more critical. Given the nature and detail of the comments (for instance, remarks on clarity of definitions), I feel that another round of iteration is necessary. I would like you to ask to address all issues in a detailed rebuttal letter, which you submit with the revised manuscript. I will do my best to speed up the process where possible after resubmission.

Best regards

Ryan Teuling

Dear authors,

Thank you for submitting a revised version of your manuscript. While I believe that most of the comments have now been addressed, I think that some of the reviewers' comments have not been correctly interpreted. In particular, the referee pointed towards the need to evaluate the model performance with respect to a baseline interception estimate. Schaefli and Gupta (HYP, 2007) nicely illustrate why such a benchmark could be necessary This is not a matter of additional metrics, but the performance should be evaluated against the performance of a "zero-hypothesis" model. In this case, this could simply be I_HS = c*P_HS. I think having an additional column in Table 1 which shows the performance of this benchmark model would address this comment of the referee. I think the other comments are addressed well, or in some cases they are not relevant because to go beyond the scope of the study (as you also point out).

I will evaluate this minor revision myself in order to speed up the review procedure. I hope you can address this comment without too much additional work. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Looking forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Ryan Teuling

Dear authors,

Thank you for adding the benchmark model analysis. I believe all the relevant comments by the referees have now been adequately addressed, and I am happy to accept your manuscript for final publication in HESS.

Best regards

Ryan Teuling