Investigating the Role of Extreme Synoptic Patterns and Complex Topography During Two Heavy Rainfall Events in Crete in February 2019

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article entitled "Investigating the Role of Extreme Synoptic Patterns and Complex Topography During two Heavy Precipitation Events in Crete in February 2019" presents a proposal to show the synoptic and mesoscale characteristics that led to the start of the two devastating storms in Crete, located in South Greece, and discuss similarities and differences between them.
The article presents an interesting topic, however, exhaustively addressed in scientific research.
The article presents a good structure and a correct and coherent writing, which facilitates its reading with fluidity and understanding.
However, there are very few bibliographic references (in all 22) that support the research and strengthen the proposal.
The methods and techniques are clear and adequate, but they lack theoretical support.
The results and conclusions are well described and presented, as well as the figures and graphs.
This reviewer, however, considers the article unsuitable for publication in view of the apparent theoretical weakness and referential basis of the authors in their writing and in their arguments, which weakens the scientific relevance of the work.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

It seems to me a good article, it is concise and it describes very well the storms that occurred. This is a work that describes two very strong storms in the same month, with synoptic aspects; the rains by their magnitude generated strong floods. My general considerations are:

The chapter associated with the introduction should be expanded into at least two or three paragraphs in which they can contextualize the reader of the topic to be addressed in this case extreme precipitation events. They could mention important aspects that influence these phenomena and antecedents or studies of this type that have been carried out in the Mediterranean islands. They mention that there are many studies on the Mediterranean islands, which studies? summarize them in one or two paragraphs and highlight their importance, the most relevant results. In this item, they are only limiting themselves to mentioning that there are few studies in Crete and they immediately address the main objective of the study.

 

1.   The methodology is NOT CLEAR, in the summary it is not distinguished, in the Methodology chapter it describes the study area, the storms analyzed, the source of the data and even mentions previous studies (it should not go there), but not the methods they used to analyze both storms. How did they make the maps? some tool? technically this principle of replicability is not fulfilled in research. In my position as a reader (in other articles), there are interesting analyzes, graphics that are generated, but it is not indicated how they did it, it is very common in the document.

 

 From lines 48 to 56 they present how the article will be addressed, however, they do not describe in which section the reader finds the methodology and when he talks about section 3.1, 3.2 and 3.4 it is not contextualized whether this is part of the results or of What is part ? additionally do not mention section 3.3. The wording is confusing. In my opinion, everything presented in 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4 should be consolidated and summarized as section 3 and mention that it refers to the results of the investigation showing an overview.

 

2.   Chapter 2 mentions Materials and methods, but in reality, only the study area and the source of the data are presented but there is absolutely nothing regarding the methodology used, which invalidates the study since everything is left to the reader's imagination. I consider this to be a major correction since the results cannot be validated if there is no detailed knowledge of the methodology used.

  

3. The graphs must be consistent with the way the variable is mentioned. In some graphics, it is mentioned as precipitation and in others as rainfall, also verify this aspect in the title of the figures. this happens specifically with figure 3 and figure 4. In figure 5 change the X axis for Data and Time. In figure 3 on the X axis include the units in parentheses. The same observation for Figure 8. Also, check Figure 14 both X-axis and Y-axis.

 

4. Additional aspects that would improve the text and the reader's experience:

Saying what is the Tr of the two rains analyzed, your study is not probilistic nor do they use extensive periods of analysis before selecting the two storms, but, as a reader, you dimension how common these storms are because they are large storms (both )- Present some isohyets. How is the spatial distribution of precipitation on the island? I think that isohyets provide an important basis to measure what is happening, they show the distribution of the two storms, but not the general behavior.  Having data every 10 minutes from 48 synoptic stations well distributed throughout the island, in addition to satellite information with a spatial resolution of 0.05 ° every six hours, is something very fine both spatially and temporally; it would be important to have maps of more intense precipitation isohyets; it could be indicated to which return period these rains correspond In the description of the floods, it is important to mention in addition to the antecedent rain, the type and use of soils in the affected region.     

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Review of “Investigating the Role of Extreme Synoptic Patterns and Complex Topography During two Heavy Precipitation Events in Crete in February 2019” by Konstantinos Lagouvardos, Stavros Dafis, Christos Giannaros, Athanassios Karagiannidis, and Vasiliki Kotroni

The authors present synoptic analysis of two storms that impacted the island of Crete in February 2019. The results are organized and well discussed. I only have a few comments.

Comment 1: lines 356 – 357; the statement here is a bit vague. Since the two referenced storms are extremes, it essential that the reader knows where they rank in terms of the historical record. Although the authors mention concerns with the reliability of the long-term rain gauge data, there are a few reliable global reanalysis datasets that can be utilized.

Comment 2:  Where applicable, I think all the figures like 4 should predate the onset of each event, i.e., to show the lead up (perhaps a day or two) to the onset and extended a day or two beyond its dissipation. This will help readers better appreciate the uniqueness of the encompassing synoptic conditions.

Comment 3: What are the controls for the occurrence of similar storms in the region? What is the relevance of this study to the occurrence of similar types in the future?

Comment 4: Could changes in any synoptic climatological conditions have contributed to the occurrence and severity of the events? I feel this study would have been more impactful if the authors could have added a synoptic attribution in the context of climate change.

Comment 5: Going by standard practice, I think the authors should add a test for significance to all plots; although there is the expectation that meteorological and synoptic conditions encompassing extreme events would always pass the test for significance.

Comment 6: On line 226, “conditions” could be used instead of “ingredients.”

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

All recommendations were followed. I recommend publishing the manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

It is observed that the authors improve the background of the work, and the introduction to the topic to be addressed; In the same way, the presentation of the maps, isohyets and the quality of the graphics were improved. There are improvements in the description of the methodological steps followed in the research.

Similarly, an approximation is made of the probability of the event that occurred, the strongest in 44 years according to the registration period.

 

Also, more bibliographic references were added.

A review of the comments of the previous evaluators indicates that the suggestions requested by them have been made. The article is publishable.