Dear Shraddhanand Shukla et al.

Thank you for the submission of your manuscript “Improving early warning of drought-driven food insecurity in Southern Africa using operational hydrological monitoring and forecasting products”.

Two reviewers have now provided comments to your manuscript, which you have already replied in detail to. Some of the recommendations point to medium revisions and therefore I would like to invite you to submit a revised version of your manuscript. In particular, I suggest to take into account the request from both reviewers to highlight the performance of your approach against others existing forecast methods (either by direct comparison or by means of a qualitative contrast).

I also ask you to provide provide an ‘author’s reply’ to the reviewers (feel free to use the same words that you used in what you have already uploaded) and include, in the same author reply document, a track changes document between the old manuscript and the new one.

I look forward to seeing the next version of your manuscript and will send it out again to the reviewers to reconsider the publication.

Regards
Carmelo Cammalleri
NHESS Guest Editor
[Researcher at the European Commission, Joint Research Centre]

Dear Author,

I am pleased to inform you that the revised version of your manuscript NHESS-2019-267 can now be accepted for publication in our journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS). Please inform your co-authors of the editorial decision.

You will soon be contacted by the journal publication office for the preparation of the final version of your manuscript. Please respond promptly to the requests of the publication office, as this will condition the time of your publication, and read carefully any copy-editing recommendations that they make. Let me remind you that final publication of your paper on the journal web site is subject to the payment of the appropriate service charges. Also, do not forget that as an open-access journal you can freely distribute your paper once it is published.

I take this opportunity to thank you and your co-authors for having selected our Special Issue on Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS) for the publication of your scientific work. I look forward to receiving further contributions to our journal from you and your co-authors.

Sincerely,

Carmelo Cammalleri
NHESS Guest Editor