Evaluation of Seasonal Climate Predictability Considering the Duration of Climate Indices

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper may be accepted in the current from

Author Response

Thank you for your kind comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

The biggest limitation of the study is that the models were not validated with independent datasets. Without proper validation performances, the performance of the models cannot be judged. The model may perform very well during training and fail to predict during validation.  

L No. 158-161 and L No. 167-169: Not very clear, what are your dependent and independent variables? Please write it clearly.

L No. 178: “preceding 1-18 months' data” better to use lead in place of preceding. According to L No. 206-207, the x-axis should be lag rather than lead.

L No. 176-184: This part is not clear. It would help to have a more complete description of how the dataset were generated for correlation analysis and - ideally in supplementary material - an example could be given for a representative area showing how the two datasets were generated.

L No. 196-197: How have you reached to the number 1000 (optimized forecast models)? Please elaborate.

L No. 203: How it is for a single year (January 2020)? It should take Jan of all the years.

It is totally confusing whether lag or lead was used for the analysis. If the authors can show an example in supplementary material, it will be more clear.

PBIAS, RSR, NSE, r and tercile hit rate suddenly appear in the results section. These indices should be presented in the materials and methods section. Larger details about tercile-based precipitation forecasts should be provided in the materials and methods section.

L No. 298-300: Why average should be used when monthly values are available?

Fig. 6(a) does it indicate that the forecast is not reliable for Jan, March, July, December?

L No. 308: Figure 7 displays a box plot. Is it so? It is a bar plot. Please check it.

What does the red line indicate in Fig 7? Please make the figure title standalone with greater details. The description of the figure items should be removed from the text and should be added as figure title.

L No. 309-310: “The red dots represent the average values of the hit rates for each lead time.” I could not find any red dot rather a red line is there.

In Fig 2 18 lead month is shown while in other figures 12 lead time is shown, why?

Conclusion part is too lengthy to comprehend.

May use some grammar correction software to correct minor mistakes.

Author Response

Thank you for the helpful feedback. Please find the responses to your comments and the revised manuscript in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and recommendations

l  The article is dealing with statistical analysis of climate indices to assess seasonal predictability. Generally, the article examines appropriate climatic indices set, follows an interesting and accepted methodology is clearly written and well organized.

l The paper is a very good statistical work however it lacks the presentation of a physical interpretation of the results and in this aspect some additional analysis should be provided as it is explained in the following. 

l  In both sections “3.2 Precipitation forecasts” and “3.3 Temperature forecasts” some specification is needed of the climate indices that represent higher predictability scores. For those indices a physical interpretation on how possibly affects or may be related to the study area should be included in relevant discussions. 

l Overall, I recommend acceptance of the article with the above suggestions that may be helpful in improving the paper.

Author Response

Thank you for the helpful feedback. Please find the responses to your comments and the revised manuscript in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Fig 3. What the numbers within the parenthesis indicate? Please explain it in the figure title.

Fig 6, 7, 10 and 11: What these red and blue line indicate? Please explain it in the figure title.

Author Response

Your comments have been reflected in the manuscript.

Please refer to the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx