Evaluation and Assimilation of FY-3C/D MWHS-2 Radiances in the RMAPS-ST

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, the manuscript is very well written, very interesting, and reports new results on assimilating MWHS-2 radiance data in the RMAPS-ST regional 20 model. The authors put a lot of work and effort into the development of the methodology presented providing excellent results.  The manuscript is certainly recommended for publication in its present form.

Author Response

We thanks for  the very constructive comments from the reviewers. We have taken all of reviewer’s comments into consideration and revised the manuscript accordingly. All the changes have been highlighted in the revised manuscript. 

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper presents the evaluation and ssimilation of FY-3C/D MWHS-2 Radiances in 2 the RMAPS-ST in China. The paper reports small improvement for low-level humidity of short-range forecast and increase of the score skills of different rainfall levels in the first 12 h forecast. It seems that MWHS-2 radiance has a small positive impact on low-level humidity, temperature and wind in the RMAPS-ST model.

The paper is very well written. Various aspects of the problem are presented.  The methods are well described as well as the results. The discussion places the things in the correct basis.

The levels of the paper is very high.

Due to the above reasons it is suggested for publication.

Author Response

We thanks for  the very constructive comments from the reviewers. We have taken all of reviewer’s comments into consideration and revised the manuscript accordingly. All the changes have been highlighted in the revised manuscript. 

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Editor,

Please find my review of a manuscript titled "Evaluation and Assimilation of FY-3C/D MWHS-2 Radiances in the RMAPS-ST" by Yanhui Xie , Lu Mao , Min Chen , Jiancheng Shi , Shuiyong Fan , Ruixia submitted for consideration for possible publication in MDPI Remote Sensing.

This study is concerned with assimilation of humidity data obtained by means of satellite remote sensing into a weather forecast system. Specifically, humidity data obtained from the Microwave humidity sounder-2 (MWHS-2) on FY-3C and FY-3D satellites are employed in this study.  Assimilating MWHS-2 radiance data in the Rapid-refresh Multi-scale Analysis and Prediction System－Short-term (RMAPS-ST) regional model, this study investigates an impact of MWHS-2 radiance data assimilation on accuracy of forecasts and demonstrates  a small but significant improvement for low-level humidity of short-range forecasts.

The subject of this study fits comfortably under umbrella of versatile topics of this journal. Data are and methodology are robust.

Some revision is required before publishing the manuscript. For example, Table 2 presents trivial information and can be removed (readers should know about metrics such as hits, misses, false alarms and correct negatives).  

Line 303 Results, and then again Line 363 Results; this needs clarification.

In my opinion, there is a limitation of the study. Two groups of assimilation experiments with and without MWHS-2 radiances were conducted for one month from 1 July 2019 to 31 July 2019 which is the summer month. Authors should discuss this limitation and consider extension of the experiments to other seasons (spring, autumn, and winter) when humidity is different from the summer time.  

This reviewer recommends accepting the manuscript after suggested minor revision.

Yours faithfully,

The Reviewer

Author Response

We first thank the very constructive comments from all the reviewers. We have taken all of reviewer’s comments into consideration and revised the manuscript accordingly. All the changes have been highlighted in the revised manuscript. Our detailed responses are as the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx