I believe you have done a very good job addressing the reviewers’ comments. Furthermore, I find the manuscript of high quality and the model to be a valuable contribution to the field. However, there are still a few improvements that I believe should be made before publication, listed below.

P 7, line 18, Eq. 7 and subsections: A minor point, but consider ordering the terms homogeneously here in the text, in Eq. 7 and in the subsections beneath for simplicity and easier reference.

Eq. 7: I agree with Mario Krapp concerning the lack of a latent heat term in this equation. Later it is stated that the latent heat of refreezing can only occur below the surface, however melting – and thus it would seem the latent heat of melting – can only happen at the surface. In other words, if Q_lh (when negative) appears in the energy balance of Eq. 7 in the model, it should appear in the equation. And if this is not the case, this should be made much more clear in the description of how this is treated. Is Eq. 7 applied to the surface boundary of the first grid box, for example, while negative Q_lh is applied within the box itself?

P 12, line 20: These two sentences sound contradictory and is related to my previous comment: “Melting only occurs at the surface and the corresponding amount is added to water mass of the uppermost box. However, during one time step more than one snow layer may melt and the vertical grid is adjusted accordingly.” Does melting only occur at the surface, or also within the snow layers – please clarify?

P 13, line 1: After 5000 model years, the snow model is in equilibrium. => The snow model reaches equilibrium after 5000 model years. [Current formulation is a bit roundabout]

Fig. 7 & Table 4: Figure 7 should come before Table 4, both in appearance and in the text. Fig 7 is more general and serves to introduce the individual metrics (A, T, and m), and these abbreviations should also be introduced in the text (around the paragraph on p 16, line 10).

P 19, line 23-24: Surface melt should be a positive quantity.

P 20, line 15: RMSE with subscripts (RMSE_A, etc)?

P 20, line 17-18: I would move this first sentence to the end of the next paragraph, as the latter is more introductory to the section. Or generally modify this part. Otherwise it is missing a direct link into stating the BESSI experimental setup in the subsequent paragraph.

Fig. 5: The colors used are not particularly printer/reader friendly. At a minimum, please change the yellow to a darker variant. I would suggest using a colorblind safe palette, such as can be found here: http://colorbrewer2.org/, among others. This comment applies to other figures as well (mainly those with time series or lines).