Dependence of predictability of precipitation in the northwestern Mediterranean coastal region on the strength of synoptic control

Keil, Christian; Chabert, Lucie; Nuissier, Olivier; Raynaud, Laure

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15851-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 24

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15851-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Hydrological cycle in the Mediterranean (ACP/AMT/GMD/HESS/NHESS/OS...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15851-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 24

Research article

|

21 Dec 2020

Research article |

| 21 Dec 2020

Dependence of predictability of precipitation in the northwestern Mediterranean coastal region on the strength of synoptic control

Christian Keil, Lucie Chabert, Olivier Nuissier, and Laure Raynaud

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Final revised paper (published on 21 Dec 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 10 Jun 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Paper review "Dependence of Predictability of Precipitation in the Northwestern Mediterranean Coastal Region on the Strength of Synoptic Control" by Christian Keil, Lucie Chabert, Olivier Nuissier and Laure Raynaud.', Anonymous Referee #1, 09 Jul 2020
RC2: 'Review of the manuscript "Weather Regime Dependent Predictability of Precipitation in the Northwestern Mediterranean Coastal Region"', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 Jul 2020
AC1: 'Replies', Christian Keil, 06 Oct 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Christian Keil on behalf of the Authors (06 Oct 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (07 Oct 2020) by Heini Wernli

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (15 Oct 2020)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (21 Oct 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Second review of the paper "Dependence of Predictability of Precipitation in the Northwestern Mediterranean Coastal Region on the Strength of Synoptic Control" by
Christian Keil, Lucie Chabert, Olivier Nuissier, and Laure Raynaud.

My thanks to the authors for your careful consideration of the points I raised in my earlier review. I am now satisfied that this interesting paper is suitable for publication following a few minor revisions.

Revisions:
1. I would advise that you have a close read through the whole document because there are places where the grammar could be corrected for improved readability. I will mention a few, but there are many more. None of these take away the sense of what you are trying to convey, but they do leave it looking less polished.
2. In the abstract you should add the word "the" between "quality of" and "most intense". You should also change "percentiles" to "percentile"
3. In my review I raised the issue of domain size. You have stated that “The domain size conforms with the recommendation of Wernli et al. (2009) to use areas smaller than 500 km x 500 km to compute an unequivocal spatial forecast quality value representative of a certain meteorological situation.” You say that there isn't anything more to say, I'm not completely convinced. I think it is the wavelength that matters rather than the area and that means the 800km matters. I do agree with you that this domain is probably fine despite that, but I do think you should add an extra sentence to say that you have examined sub-domains and got similar results and that you don't want to exceed 1000km in length. If you don't add a sentence like that it reads to me (and therefore possibly others) that your domain fits within the Wernli et al constraint numerically in area, but not necessarily meteorologically since your domain is far from being square.

3. line 140 - suggest change "amounts to larger values comparable to the synoptic timescale." to "becomes larger and more comparable to the synoptic timescale."
4. line 169 - change "provides a suitable measure than CAPE" to "provides a more suitable measure than CAPE"
5. I still feel you have too much description of the details of the precipitation in the case studies. This doesn't make the paper unpublishable if it fits into the allocated space, so I'm not suggesting you have to reduce it, but I do think you need to make it clearer which parts of maps you are referring to. I know where the Massif Central or Var is, but someone from the US or China, for example, may have no clue and will be put off reading this part. The reader would benefit from either having labels (e.g. "A") placed at the areas of interest or, add something to say what part of the domain (e.g. bottom middle or bottom right).
6. line 288-289 you now have "This is
an indication of overforecasting equivalent to an overconfidence of the ensemble, .." Stating that this is overconfidence of the ensemble rather than a wet bias I think you've added at the request of the other reviewer, and it is more correct. It's may be worth adding though that the overconfidence could still come from a wet bias or a tendency to have too much spatial agreement.
7. change "values larger 0.8 for window sizes larger 25 km 50 km tantamount with the highest whiskers (Fig. 13)." to "values larger than 0.8 for window sizes larger than 25 km 50 km tantamount with the highest whiskers (Fig. 13)."

Finally, my apologies for stating that you had missed the problem of under-sampling when interpolating rain gauges which you had indeed mentioned in your conclusions, as you pointed out. I'm pleased you've put a sentence higher up too because it's something I've seen neglected in verification studies.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (22 Oct 2020) by Heini Wernli

AR by Christian Keil on behalf of the Authors (26 Oct 2020) Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (27 Oct 2020) by Heini Wernli

AR by Christian Keil on behalf of the Authors (30 Oct 2020) Manuscript

Short summary

During strong synoptic control, which dominates the weather on 80 % of the days in the 2-month HyMeX-SOP1 period, the domain-integrated precipitation predictability assessed with the normalized ensemble standard deviation is above average, the wet bias is smaller and the forecast quality is generally better. In contrast, the spatial forecast quality of the most intense precipitation in the afternoon, as quantified with its 95th percentile, is superior during weakly forced synoptic regimes.