Review of the paper "A global climatology of sting-jet extratropical cyclones" by Gray et al., 2024.

I read the paper with great interest and I found it helpful and insightful, providing a richness of interesting results. A global climatology of sting-jet cyclones was indeed missing from the state of the art and this paper provides an overview of these systems' structural characteristics and insights into their dynamics. I have comments and suggestions of minor nature on the organization of the manuscript that I leave to the authors discretion if they want to follow them.

Section 2 is clearly described, albeit complicated and long. Complexity is not due to language or presentation, but due to the large amount of knowledge and techniques that someone needs to understand and be already familiar with. Probably sections 2.1, 2.3 and 2.6 could go together. Then, sections 2.2 and 2.4 could form a separate (sub)section which could be supported with schematics or flowcharts so that the reader can conceptually understand the role of different dynamical features in sting-jets. A subsequent subsection could use real cases as examples (now figures 1 to 3) to demonstrate the complexity of the exercise and what is expected in realistic datasets. Finally, section 2.5 although it is important it could be moved to supplement or an appendix. 

I am not sure there are many(any?) climatologies of warm seclusions (SJP+nSJP). It would be useful to know a bit more on how they compare spatially to other intense cyclones. 

Section 3.1: If most SJP cyclones include a sting jet and if ERA5 may partly resolve these sting jets, then is it possible that sting jets are responsible for higher relative vorticity at 850 hPa in the center of the cyclones in T63 resolution? If so, then SJP cyclones should anyway be more intense than other cyclones (if we use relative vorticity as an intensity metric). A reply comes later in section 3.4, so I am wondering if this section should be merged with 3.4? (Please also see next comment on section 3.6).

Section 3.6: seems a bit weaker and detached from the rest of the paper and is only confirming that SJP cyclones inlcude higher wind speeds. I am wondering if there should be a unique subsection that discusses the intensity of the cyclones involved in this analysis (i.e. merging current sections 3.1, 3.4 and 3.6).

This is a really great paper detailing a new climatology of sting jet cyclones considering all ocean basins (rather than just the North Atlantic region that has already received quite a bit of attention). The climatology is produced using a subset of intense cyclones that contain a warm seclusion. The sting jet precursor is calculated for each storm and some additional criteria used to determine the cyclones with the potential for producing sting jets. The analysis includes the spatial and temporal variability of the storms, the distributions of their characteristics, and composites of their structure.

The paper is well-written and contains thorough analysis and interesting results and conclusions. A key point is that sting jet cyclones seem to be possible in all ocean basins, and not just in the North Atlantic European region on which case studies have usually focused.

I have a few minor comments and suggestions.

1. Line 43: Add reference for Norwegian model.
2. Line 53: “There is published…” -> “there is no published…”.
3. Lines 132-139: I think the watershed algorithm could be explained or described in a bit more detail. How are the watersheds defined?
4. Line 151: Something strange with the section numbering – think this should be 2.5 (rather than 22.5).
5. Figure 1: This figure is a bit too small to see the necessary details in order to understand the method. Is there a way to make this larger?
6. Line 164: This sentence doesn’t seem to read correctly.
7. Figure 2 caption end – similar problem with section numbering.
8. Line 337: Here it is pointed out that the nSJP cyclones have higher cyclogenesis in the secondary cyclogenesis regions. Later on it is suggested that the SJP cyclones have higher proportion of secondary cyclogenesis, indicated by the MSLP composites. It would be good to test the hypothesis given later (line 419), as these statements seem to be a little contradictory.
9. Line 354: How is the significance tested here?
10. Line 428: I think this is a really interesting result and it is nice to see it highlighted in the conclusions.
11. Line 502: “faster” -> “higher”.