I enjoyed reading through the manuscript. It is well written and covers the topic well, its context is well stated and engages with a range of pertinent literatures. I have identified a couple of points below that the authors should consider within the revisions.

My two main comments are that the authors need to justify the significance of this work more powerfully, why is this important and to whom, and demonstrate the quality of the data at this station early on, recognising human activities and management of the station are also important.  

There is little assessment of the data quality at the site, you are using a long series, have there been changes in instrument, rainfall recording practice, location, even when to human recorders change – these are all likely/certain to varying degrees, but are important points to consider and can help explain potential changes in the data. This might explain why there was a change in pentads in the 1930s and 2010s, or it might be climatic variability. Irrespective of cause, demonstrating this understanding will strengthen your arguments and conclusions (easy to add around line 140).

The significance of the paper is commented upon by the authors, but my key point on completing the paper was it fails to demonstrate the need for the study – the ‘so what’ question. The paper would be much stronger if you could demonstrate why a ~5-day shorter rainy season is important, what impact will this have? This should be quite easy to add, but demonstrate it rather than just stating it will have an impact on water management...

I would encourage you to separate the discussion and conclusions – this will permit you to discuss the findings within the context of the wider literature and then highlight and reiterate the key points from this study.  

I think you can reduce the number of tables and figures presented, some appear to offer limited additional information on that already presented within the text (comments below).

Minor comments to consider:

Line ~35               Do you get any hail/snowfall? It might be worth adding a sentence stating as a justification for the use of rainfall rather than precipitation.

Line ~140             What about trace precipitation measurements >0mm but <1mm. Please clarify.   

Line 171                add space between ‘1and’

Line 219               remove ‘ from 1940’s, so 1940s

Line 226                end sentence after …(1950s). delete at all stations since 1900.

Line~320-23        is this shift in dates significant or just noise?

Tables – are all these needed, I think there may be an opportunity to reduce the number presented. Reconsider Tables 2, 4, 5, 7 & 9, particularly Tables 2 & 7 – do these add anything not within the text?

Figure 3 – Difficult to see red line (A-O 5-year Gaussian filter)

Figure 5 MSL – is this days?

Figure 6 – would these benefit from a 10 or 30 year running mean? I ask as looking at >3 days there looks to be an underlying pattern that is deviated from in ~1870-1910 and ~1940-1960.

Figure 8 – remove?

Figure 9 – I think this is a powerful graphic, but the caption could be revised to be more explicit and help the reader see more clearly what is being presented. Revise x-axis label – time units?

This study makes use of a beautiful long-term rainfall record in Cape Town to explore the nature of wet and dry seasons in the region since 1841.

Given the water shortages there in recent years, this paper is timely, relevant, and for the most part has a logical and clear approach. It is well written, and while there are a lot of figures and tables, they communicate the findings in ways that will be accessible to most readers. I have one major comment, and several minor and technical comments for the authors to consider.

Major comment

The main concern I have with this paper is the conclusions drawn from the complex wavelet analysis, particularly in relation to the role of solar variability on rainfall in southern Africa. My understanding is that the impact of solar variation on regional rainfall is likely to be very small, and that modern studies have found a correlation, but no real causation. At the moment these results seem to be the product of statistics, without any connection to what is happening on the ground. If that is the goal of the study, then that needs to be made clearer, but I think consideration of the dynamics would make the paper much more convincing.

The easiest way to address this is to provide additional information in the introduction and conclusion about how solar variations, ENSO and SAM dynamically influence the weather and climate of Cape Town. Perhaps it is worth summarising the key results from the other studies mentioned, for example. 

Minor comments

• Lines 17–18: Is a decline of 3 days statistically significant? If so, it should be mentioned.
• Bottom of page 2: Could a gauge reading of 0.1mm also indicate dew, rather than rainfall?
• Line 98: ‘and also some’ rather than ‘as also some’
• Line 130–135 could be expanded a little, with more detail added. Perhaps a table can be included to provide more specific detail about the climate mode indices used, their frequency, and the exact dataset used for their derivation. Which dataset was used to extend the Gong and Wang SAM index back to 1851, for example? Presumably 20CR, but it would be good to clarify this, particularly because there may be some quality issues examining SAM that far back.
• Line 189: Can you please spell out CWT?
• Lines 280-287: interesting analysis!
• Line 318-319: Are the lengths significantly shorter as well? It would be good to clarify this.
• Line 326: Is 17 October Julian day 290, not 289?
• Line 329-330: This is a dramatic statistic that might go better in the abstract than the current information provided in lines 17–18.

Figures

• Figure 3: Is it possible to replot these graphs to be longer, with the same x-axis and stacked on top of each other as four long plots rather as a 2x2 of square plots? I think this would allow for easier comparison across the stations, and make it easier to see the interannual variability.
• Figure 8: Presumably this figure is for SAOO?