Dear authors,

thanks for revising the manuscript and adressing the initial comments. You will see that one of the reviewers has few minor comments left and I recommend addressing them prior to publication, therefore the manuscript is accepted to "publish subject to minor revisions".

Having a final look at the manuscript I noted an aspect that could be discussed from line 430 onwards is the impact of Saharan dust outbreaks on forecasts of solar insolation / cloud cover in Central europe. This is of very strong interest in the context of renewable energies, and nicely links your fundamental research work to applications. E.g. a brief discussion of the study by Hermes et al. https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.4666 and/or Seifert et al. https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/23/6409/2023/ would bridge several aspects that you mention in the conclusions (Saharan dust outbreaks, WCBs, and as a novel aspects implications for forecasts / predictability over Europe).

Kind regards

Dear authors, thanks for adressing the minor comments and I am happy to write, that the paper is now ready for publication as it is. Kind regards Christian Grams