Understanding the distributions of the cluster area and total rain rate for tropical oceanic rain clusters is a challenging problem. This study developed a cellular automation (CA) model for simulating the evolution of cloud clusters by only imposing a few simple rules for convective organization. Among them, the key rules are the large-scale destabilization of the atmosphere and effects of propagating gravity waves. The results reproduces some observed scaling exponent as reported in other studies. Considering its scientific merits, I believe this study matches the broad scope of the journal. That said, I have several major and minor comments regarding its presentation and scientific discussion. Overall, I would suggest a major revision before it is considered for publication. 

Major Comment: 

1.  Section 2: CA for tropical rain clusters and Table 1. This part is very important but poorly presented. I would suggest the authors to rewrite the whole section and clearly present the CA model. The details in Appendix B is also very important, I would suggest to move Appendix B back to the main context. 

2. Two time scales. I can understand that the two time scales are introduced in the model to mimic radiative time scale and convective time scale. But it is unclear to me how it works in the model perspective. Please clarify how the variable X changes in terms of two time scales (can tau be arbitrary large when t is fixed? ) and why you choose to do so. It seems to me that using a single time scale should be a more straightforward way. 

3. Cellular automation model. It seems to me that the so-called cellular automaton model is just  grid models that have been extensively studied before in this field. The authors seem to ignore such previous literatures such as Craig and Mack (2013) and Biagioli and Tompkins (2023). Please go search the literature and add more discussions about the grid models for convective organization. 

4. Effects of propagating gravity waves. This model only consider destabilization effects for the nearest-neighboring grids and stabilization effects for the next-nearest-neighboring grids. Why is that? Gravity waves generally can propagate further than that. In fact, a recent study by Wilson and Hearter (2026) (https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU26/EGU26-21637.html, presented in EGU this year but probably not published yet) discussed this from a conceptual model perspective. I would suggest the authors to discuss the similarity and differences between this model and other models that incorporates gravity waves. 

5. Figure 1. It is better to show some data analysis based on your simulation, beside the schematic diagram. Otherwise, readers have no idea how the actual model simulations matches the schematic diagram in Figure 1. Same comment to Figure 9.

6. It is a bit surprising to me that the cases without interacting lattice still exhibit the power law. Why is that? I would suggest to add the scaling exponent in the panels of Figure 2. Same comments to the remaining figures with the distribution curves such as Figure 3-5. 

7. The discussions in Section 3.2 and 3.3 are way too technical. I would suggest the authors to rewrite these discussions, avoid too many numbers, and try to focus more on physical interpretation. 

8. Figure 6-10. I had a hard time to follow all the details. I guess at least one thing you need to focus on is the effects of propagating gravity waves when comparing the interacting cases with non-interacting cases. 

Minor Comment:

1. Table 1, Equation 3: The symbol "I_j" first occurs in this equation without definition before or after it. You need to first introduce what I_j is. (May be the avalanche intensity ?)

2. Line 104: "coordinates"

3. Line 108: "lattice indices that defines ..."

4. Equation (7): The symbol "Z" first occurs in this equation without explanation before or after it. It is better to first introduce the lattice length Z.

5. Figure 1: There are too many words in this figure and the fontsize is too small. I would suggest first simplifying the descriptions into several words in the figure and then explaining them in detail in the figure caption.

6. Line 145: "Ds is the a ...", "the" is needless.

7. Line 159: "be mapped to"

8. Line 332: The description of the question is too hard to understand and a question mark is missing. How about "Is feedback from convection (i.e., generation of waves and vertical motions by condensation) relevant for the relationship between ... ?"

9. Line 348: "a limited set of ..."

10. Line 355: "exhibits criticality which is similar to ..."

11. Line 378: "A and R", a space is missing.