A Satellite View of an Intense Snowfall in Madrid (Spain): The Storm ‘Filomena’ in January 2021

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this valuable paper, the authors have dealt with a very important scientific topic, but this paper in its current version needs some modifications and revisions before agreeing to publish it, as the authors must address all of the following comments:

1.      All article content must be proof-reader to avoid possible typos.
2.      Please check that you have provided a "Graphical Abstract" if not please put it in response to reviewers and upload it in system.
3.      Avoid using abbreviations in the Title, Highlights, Abstract (such as GPM, IMERG, etc.) and Conclusions, if possible.
4.      As for the article abstract, it does not describe clearly the considered problem. The abstract should contain answers to the following questions: What problem was studied and why is it important? What methods were used? What are the important results? What conclusions can be drawn from the results? What is the novelty of the work and where does it go beyond previous efforts in the literature? Please include specific and quantitative results in your abstract, while ensuring that it is suitable for a broad
5.      Introduction quantity is not enough for publishing. Please extend it, use more literature reviews.
6.      There are so many self-citations, please reduce them.
7.     Figure 1 needs north symbol.
8.     In method section you need pay more about remote sensing details, please address all approaches and software as you used.
9.     Results and discussion can be two separated parts for this case, then please make a new part by name of discussion and have a deep discussion and compassion on your finding.
10.     Figure 6 needs more explanation.
11.     Please provide references for Figures (2).
12.     Please provide more discussion about Figure 7.
13.     Evaluation for this study is not enough. Please have justification on your finding by some statistical metrics.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript presented focuses on the study of the extraordinary snowfall in the Iberian Peninsula in winter 2021. The work is very interesting and responds to a current event, of local interest, although the methodology is transferable to other similar studies.

The work has been presented as an Article, but I consider that it should be modified to a Technical Note, due to its length and because the discussion is reduced to comments on its own results.

The presentation is correct, and the supplementary material is adequate. The methodology is well explained and is appropriate to the work, although it seems to be mostly extracted from the paper [32], and should be better justified at the beginning as to why it is extracted from there.

I highlight some aspects that should be improved:

The title of the paper is too specific and perhaps out of place, the study area should be better located in the title, either generalizing to storm in the center of the Iberian Peninsula or Madrid (Spain). Readers in general do not usually know where Madrid is. On the other hand, the localisms of “snowfall century” and Filomena will only be understood by Spanish readers. I imagine that outside this country, the title will be unintelligible. With the words snowfall century and a city no results appear in scientific search engines. Perhaps "remote sensing study of an intense snowfall in Madrid (Spain) in January 2021" would be more appropriate.

Figure 1 should be presented in the results section, since it is the first basic result on which the study is based. Since the precipitations according to AEMET are unreal for sure, the failure of the official measurement network to provide these results that from any analysis are erroneous should be criticized. It is suggested to provide a satellite image showing the real extent of snowfall and its agreement with the proposed model. As an example, any Sentinel-3 quicklook showing the extent of snowfall could be useful, such as those of January 12 or 13, 2021.

From my point of view, the problem of heated nivometers, which stop working when the cold is very intense, freezing the measuring mechanism and making the heating ineffective because it is out of the operating range, should be better highlighted. It should therefore be proposed the use of other types of snowfall gauges (perhaps by weight, by wave systems or any other).

As for figures 3 to 8, each subfigure should be indicated with a letter A B C D and in the caption of figures the explanation of each one with its letter, instead of top left, bottom right and so on.

The first paragraph of the conclusions is descriptive and could be eliminated, as it seems more like a summary. Paragraph lines 419-422 seems more appropriate for the end of the discussion, in terms of presenting subjective considerations about investments in information systems.

The bibliography presents a number of self-citations, which should be better presented to point out their necessity. Also note that citation 30 does not appear in the text but does appear in the references.

The bibliographic references should be adapted to the style of the journal in the next version.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

It is valuable to evaluate the satellite capacity in capturing sudden natural disasters such as the heavy snowstorm in Spain. The authors made a good presentation on this issue. There are some important views from the author's interpretation, such as from Line 319 to 349, which perfectly support the opinions in the CONCLUSION part. However, I also noticed some political comments which maybe not be closely related to this paper, such as from Line 266 to 299.
A serious article would clear its border between the scientific conclusions supported by reliable data and the political comments. However, I noticed a mix of the two in this paper. No doubt, the authors have some insights into the social problem caused by this heavy snowstorm. Even in private, I agree with them in some opinions. However, these opinions are beyond the border of this paper and not supported by the presented data or methods.
I suggest the authors keep this paper simplicity, containing the comments to the government or on economic influence in a limited paragraph, making a more precise description of the remote sensing capacity in capturing the sudden snowstorm, finally making the conclusion stronger. In addition, I look forward to reading another report or science news for their political opinions.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript is acceptable.

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript has been improved as proposed in the first review. Very interesting work.