Dear Authors:
Both reviewers acknowledge the relevance of your study, but their comments suggest that some discussion is needed. I further find that thepresentation ofyour study should be improved. For these reasons, the manuscript is returned for a major revision.

- Consider writing a more effective abstract. The first three lines of the abstract can be dropped (they are not useful for appreciating the values of your study) and a short description of the methodology is not explicit.

- At page 7,” Algorithm 1 Computational scheme of empirical extreme values curves and its confidence intervals, has no clear status. Is it part of the text? Or it is a tale? I suggest to consider it a table (add a caption) and refer to it in the text. Further, the meaning of the individual lines with arrow and brackets is not clear. It needs to be substantially revised.

- Figure 2 is not readable (arrows are too small)

- The use of “unique” in the line 1 of the conclusions is ambiguous. “Results on the analysis of the extremes reveal how different weather circulation patterns may lead to sea storms having, on average, unique characteristics”. As it stands, it might be interpreted that different weather patterns lead to the same marine storm

- In the paper, you talk about atmospheric processes, but I think you refer to circulation patterns (not processes). Please, correct the therminology

- In the conclusion, when you write “For the analysed locations, the proposed methodology led to the identification of two well known cyclonic systems, characteristic of the atmospheric circulation on the Mediterranean Sea, as the origin of the extreme wave events affecting the Italian shores”, I would suggest inserting a short description of those two patterns

- Further, you might discuss how your patterns compare with fig.122 of Lionello et al (2006). Cyclones in the Mediterranean region: climatology and effects on the environment. In P.Lionello, P.Malanotte-Rizzoli, R.Boscolo (eds) Mediterranean Climate Variability. Amsterdam: Elsevier (NETHERLANDS), 325-372, where the main synoptic circulation producing high waves in the Mediterranean are shown.

- The final sentences seem to suggest that your results are not really useful, because “The practical
consequences of the classification in terms of the omni-WP extreme distribution are relatively limited…”. Is this what you mean?

Further, I suggest you split section 3 in two new sections: “results” and “discussion”
You may use the new section “discussion” to address the issues raised by the reviewers by using your comment from the interactive discussion. I refer to
--- Reviewer 1 who asks you to discuss a) The range of validity of the classification of extreme events, only based on surface wind fields. (b) The “quality” of the obtained homogeneous data sets resulting from the feeding the k-means algorithm with the normalized wind fields producing the wave height peak conditions.
--- Reviewer 2 who claims that your proposed methodology for the classification of extreme events in the Mediterranean Sea may not be the proper approach to capture the characteristic wave climate, because of the, possibly high, local scale of the physical processes involved, especially when refering to extreme events. The table 1 and 2 that you addedto the interactive discussion could be used for this answer.

The final publication of your manuscript in NHESS is conditional upon the changes in the revised version of your manuscript and the further comments of the reviewers.

Looking forward to receiving your revised manuscript
Best regards.
Piero Lionello

Dear Dr. De Leo:
both reviewers acknowledge the improvement of this version of your manuscript. However, some final revision is required for its publication. The text is returned to you for a final minor revision. The text will not be returned to the reviewers, but it will be reviewed by me.

Figure 2 is still not readable (arrows are too small). A better version where arrows are visible is needed. I suggest you consider also to improve, for similar reasons, figure 3,4 and 9.

The abstract can be further improved. Its final sentence of the abstract “ These systems are analyzed in the context of the Mediterranean sea atmospheric climatology, and compared with those figured out by previous researches developed in similar frameworks”, in my view, does not add any relevant information. I suggest that you replace it with a sentence that describes the advantages of using your methodology. This is a weakpoint of your conclusions as well (see comment below)

You recommend to consider homogenous subsets of events (in terms of the atmospheric circulation patterns), but the advantages that you have achieved or that you expect can be achieved by extensively using this method are not clear, neither in the abstract, nor in the conclusions.
Note that reviewer 1 shares these concerns, in which she/he writes that the text lacks a clear description on the advantages of the proposed method and of its suitability for capturing local scale details for representation of extreme events. I suggest that you add some text in the conclusions to clarify these two points (particularly the first one) .

In conclusion, I suggest you improve the effectiveness of the abstract and of the conclusions

Piero Lionello
PS please check the text for spelling errors: e.g. 320 “though”instead of “tough, 337 “leads” instead of “lead”.

Dear Dr. De Leo:
I have no further comments on the revised version of your manuscript, which I am happy to recommend for publication in NHESS.
I thank you for having considered NHESS for the publications of your research.
Best regards,
Piero Lionello