Evaluation of Gridded Precipitation Data for Hydrologic Modeling in North-Central Texas

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper evaluates several precipitation products over a watershed in Texas. The paper is well-written and succinct. The methods are sound, as are the result interpretations.

My main concerns are actually quite easy to address- the authors don’t

1. justify why the particular watershed was chosen, as well as

2. discuss limitations on applying the results to other watersheds which may not match the scale or the climatology of this watershed

Please address these two concerns.

A couple of more comments for the authors to ponder upon:

1. The results are not really surprising nor exciting- after all, the gauge-based or gauge-calibrated estimates would have better accuracy!

2. The statement “This study suggests extensive efforts are needed to develop precipitation datasets that can effectively capture the mean, frequency, and intensity of the in situ precipitation, especially at daily or sub-daily time scales.

” attempts to attribute novelty to something that is commonly known in the field.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Evaluation of gridded precipitation data for hydrologic modeling in North-Central Texas has utilized the SWAT model in testing the applicability of different precipitation products such as in-situ observations, gauged-based model products, satellite-based and satellite-based gauge corrected products.

The objectives of the research are clearly illustrated, and the results are clearly presented few of my minor comments are enlisted below:

1.     In lines 29-65, the authors have mentioned the advantages of PRISM over other rainfall products and mentioned the only limitation is that the data is limited to the United States however, the study is tested within the United States. Did the author also consider the applicability of NOAA Stage IV and NOAA MRMS radar products popular in the United States which are promising for event-based hydrologic modeling, at least for calibrating the SWAT model? Several major updates have been implemented by NOAA NWS to quality control the MRMS and Stage IV product and other radar precipitation data and these datasets have shown promising application in engineering fields within the United States. Please review the sample manuscript below that discusses the quality control of MRMS data:

Tang, L., Zhang, J., Simpson, M., Arthur, A., Grams, H., Wang, Y., & Langston, C. (2020). Updates on the radar data quality control in the MRMS quantitative precipitation estimation system. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 37(9), 1521-1537.

2.     Can a rainfall product be tested with a SWAT model as SWAT is a very detailed model highly susceptible to parameter uncertainty? Did the author also test their study in any other study area with different geography and climate? Testing the hypothesis in a different location and geographic setup can also validate the use of SWAT as the model may have a different hydrologic response in some other locations.

3.     In Table 2, it is not clear from the table caption what the Min Value and Max Value represents. A table caption should be self-explanatory.

4.     The automated SUFI2 and SWAT-CUP are popular for calibrating and validating the SWAT model, I would request the authors to present more details about them. Figure 7 presents the Calibration/Validation result while the figure is of very poor image resolution which is very difficult to follow.

5.     I would like to motivate the authors to add a few lines on study limitations in the conclusion, as the supremacy or shortcoming of a rainfall product cannot be confidently established based on the study of a single watershed using a single SWAT model.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments are provided in the file. Authors need to work on these to improve the quality of the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

I want to thank the authors for addressing previous comments and for their constructive work. I found all replies satisfactory and the changes made to the manuscript significantly improve the quality of the paper. Overall, I think the resubmitted manuscript is almost ready for acceptance.