Please see attached PDF.

Review of manuscript titled “Downpours and deluges: Understanding the contrasting environments for localised and widespread heavy rainfall in the tropics”

Manuscript number: egusphere-2026-4291

By Lin, Singh, Li, and Bowden

Submitted to ACP

Overview: The authors develop a spectral entraining plume model based on a prior study (Zhou and Xie 2019). They use this model to probe the governing behaviour of precipitation in a phase space defined by stability on one axis and humidity on the other. They separate precipitation into area-averaged rainfall and local rainfall intensity (i.e., convective intensity), which they diagnose from the buoyancy of (nearly-)undilute plumes. They find that area-averaged rainfall is maximised under moist conditions while the most intense convection occurs preferentially in drier conditions with a more unstable lapse rate. They compare their theoretical results to radar observations from Darwin, Australia, leveraging ERA5 reanalysis data to characterize stability and humidity and the radar data to statistically characterize rainfall and convective system morphology. This comparison yields strong agreement, overall. While their analysis indicates that effective entrainment is highly independent of boundary layer (PBL) depth, contrary to prior hypotheses from the literature, their results do support the positive relationship between PBL depth and convective intensity.

The manuscript is very well written and organized. The logic is very easy to follow, overall, while connections to relevant prior work are made throughout the study, as appropriate. The results are clearly interpreted, with arising questions clarified thereafter in most cases. I do not see any major issues with the study. I have only a few minor issues of clarity noted below, along with one general suggestion.

General suggestion: little discussion of the role of vertical wind shear is incorporated, which is often considered to be an important control parameter on convective behavior. Especially for future investigators, I recommend that the authors reflect on this and consider discussing if and how this may play into the interpretations, perhaps in the conclusions section.

L272: 175,610 is approximately the total number of hours of this duration. Can you clarify if every hour of the dataset indeed meets the threshold for a rain event?

L287-288: How is this exclusion accomplished?

L290: This definition is identical to the description in L284-286, correct?

Section 3.1: is the stratiform mask incorporated in any of these attributes of morphology?

Fig. 2: Add a legend for panel (b)