Dear Massimiliano, Manuel Antonetti and co-authors,

thank you very much again for your submission 'Ensemble flood forecasting considering dominant runoff processes: I . Setup and application to nested basins (Emme, Switzerland)'.
Both referees acknowledge that you have taken an interesting approach to a very relevant topic. However, both referees are also struggling to get the connection of the manuscript to the accompanying paper as well as to work in the region published previously, and thus the manuscript appears difficult to follow at times.

Your suggestion to provide a supplement table which lists target area, topic, models, rainfall forcing, analyses of previous studies is appreciated, but I am convinced that these information also need to be integrated in the text of the manuscript, e.g. by reorganizing the introduction and providing additional information, to define the scope and clarify the added value of your present work. While this seems to be a major concern of the referees, a major revision is necessary.

Further, both reviewers provided detailed reports highlighting all the points you should address in the revisions. According to your responses, I am very positive about the new version of the manuscript and that you will take up their remarks.

Please also note that this decision does not necessarily imply acceptance of the manuscript in the journal NHESS, and it still will depend on your reply (and subsequent edits to your manuscript) to referees comments, as well as on the reviewer comments of the revised version.

I look forward to receiving the revised version of your manuscript.

Best regards
Kai Schröter

Dear Manuel Antonetti, Massimiliano and co-authors,
thank you again for submitting the revised version of your above manuscript. Both reviewers acknowledge the work you invested in order to comply with their suggestions. I agree with them that you made an excellent job and that your paper has matured substantially, congratulations! I am happy to accept it for publication in NHESS.
There are a number of small items which I kindly ask to check whether you can improve them:

Abstract: It would be desirable to avoid abbreviations in the avstract (e.g. FF, RTs, ...)
Page 5, lines 26 - 29 could be moved before the sentence 'The results are shown in Sect. 4 and ...' (line 24)
Page 7, headline of section 3 'Models Methods' -> 'Models and Methods' ?
Page 8, lines 20 and 21: “25 by 25 m” and “500x500 m”. “m” should be “m2”.
Page 8, 29: calibration of the RGM-TRD based on ne single event. A small justification beyond the provided reference could be informative for the reader
Page 11, line 8 (and beyond): In Fig. 4, the configuration "TRD-UC" is referred to as “TRD-NC”
Page 11, lines 9-11. “A calibraton was completed for the Emmenmatt gauge”. Do you refer to the calibration of the TRD-C configuration described in page 8, line 29?
Page 13, lines 4-6. Could the good performance of deterministic forecasting chains at short lead times be explained by the higher resolution of the COSMO-1 grid? In this discussion, the differences between the configurations of COSMO-1 and COSMO-E could be relevant.

Best regards
Kai Schröter