Dear referee,

We thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript and for your comments. We have drafted a new explanatory figure which, we hope, better explains our approach in the study. This new figure would replace the current Figure 2. We welcome further comments on the new figure and its caption.

The new figure caption would read: Figure 2. Methodological approach used in the study. Box A: The input data (Soil data, Seasonal data, Tree data and Wind + Exposure) are processed and fed into ForestGales to obtain the Critical Wind Speed and subsequently the Probability of Damage. In addition, the input datasets and the Critical Wind Speed datasets are used in a machine learning (ML) algorithm (XGBoost). The ForestGales calculated probability of damage and the machine learning datasets are evaluated against a validation dataset - the recorded tree falls along powerlines during the winter 2020-2021 to assess the performance of the two methods. Box B: Graphical representation of the different model options considered in the study split into three categories: 1. the Seasonal Scenario used (section 2.3.1 in the text), 2. the Tree Data processing (section 2.1.2 in the text) and 3. the use of the Wind and Exposure data (section 2.2 & 2.3.2 in the text).

We supplement the text lines 270 with a short description of the distance to the edge and gap size calculations which was in the previous Figure 2 legend. The suggested revision is: "The distance to the edge of the forest and the associated forest gap size were calculated during the data processing step in four directions (see section 2.1.1). Three alternatives were retained when calculating the CWS: i. the “closest largest gap” was defined using the linear optimizer function of the lpSolve package in R (Berkelaar, 2024), ii. the “minimum” was simply the closest forest edge and iii. the “mean” the average of the distances to and size of the non-forested gaps in the four considered directions (to and from the powerline, and along the powerline direction)."

We welcome any further comment on these suggested changes.

Best regards,

The authors

We thank the anonymous referee #2 for their time reviewing our manuscript and for their specific comments. Please find attached our replies.