CO Editor

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

“according to media” could be replaced by a proper reference ! El Pais or Die Inselzeitung (:-)) should be acceptable references for NHESS, or ?
Lines 141-143 : There are a number of studies on the spatio/temporal variability of rainfall and some proposed metrics. It would be nice to have a reference here so that interested readers can go further.
Lines 200-217 : The authors might consider to present their water balance model with a simple equation. For some readers it will be simpler to understand than a verbose paragraph.
Line 250 : The 3 hourly rainfall which has driven the land surface models in the Earth2Observe simulations is not coming from the ECMWF re-analysis but rather independent satellite estimates : Beck et al. MSWEP: 3-hourly 0.25◦ global gridded precipitation (1979–2015) by merging gauge, satellite, and reanalysis data, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 589–615, 2017. It would be good to add this reference so that we know the origin of the error you identify.
The high precipitation values used in the Earth2Observe simulations certainly comes from spatial issues in MSWEP. It cannot properly make the difference between the valley in Mallorca and the mountains to the West.
Line 346 : “really dry” not the right wording in a scientific paper, or ? “extremely dry” is perhaps more suitable.
Line 373 : “continuous deficit” does not sound right to me but I see what you mean.
Line 412 : “essentially unfavorable” is the word essentially needed ?
Line 464 : “... was also unappreciable over all three islands.” sounds better to me.

Referee Report: PDF

Interactive discussion

Peer-review completion