This ambitious article investigates the feasibility of retrieving snow ice water content and precipitation rates using vertically-pointed G-band radars. Often, centimeter-wavelength radars (S-band, C-band, X-band, Ku-band, etc.) are used for radar retrievals, especially for operational purposes. The authors however find that due to non-Rayleigh scattering effects, ice water content (IWC) and snowfall rate (S) retrievals are expected to vary considerably less at G-band than for these typical centimeter wavelength radars and even other millimeter radars (e.g., Ka- and W-) that are commonly used for ice retrievals – at least for large enough particles. The authors compare the computationally simpler Rayleigh Gans Approximation (RGA) for a number of particles from the ARTS database to the accurate and computationally rigorous Discrete Dipole Approximation (DDA) calculations for the same particles at G-band wavelengths. The authors use these simulations to justify the theoretical power-law scaling of non-Rayleigh scattering that they then use in the rest of the manuscript to derive retrieval equations; this power-law scaling of the parameter ‘f’ acts as a moment-based integration kernel when calculating IWC and S as well as other moment-based parameters. Overall, the authors show this scaling parameter ‘f’ leads to IWC and S being directly proportional to G-band Z and Z*MDV. For suitably sized aggregates, many of the parameters in the IWC and S equations can be treated as constants. The authors use simulations to determine and justify appropriate constant numbers for different types of particles. The authors include another set of numerical experiments where they vary the particle size distribution shapes for various mass-weighted diameters (Dm) and they find that there is only slight variability in results for typical Dm values of snow found near the surface. Finally, the authors utilize G-band data from real snow cases in the United Kingdom where they retrieve IWC and S and then statistically compare results to ground and in-situ measurements.

I found the manuscript to be exceptionally straightforward and easy to read. I thought the experiments were sensible and that the authors took good care of incorporating additional factors such as the impact of attenuation. The biggest limitation of this study really is whether the errors and limitations introduced when utilizing G-band radars are truly worth the benefits provided by the theoretically more accurate retrievals in a more practical sense. Overall, I’d like to see a more thorough discussion on the practical aspects and limitations of using vertically-pointed G-band compared to other radar wavelengths. I’m also wondering what the authors’ beliefs are regarding how G-band radars should or could be used; should these radars be used only in field campaigns or should they be deployed operationally? Also, I believe the authors should provide rough estimates of expected errors from G-band retrievals compared to similar errors from centimeter and maybe millimeter radars in order for readers to fully appreciate the benefits of utilizing G-band radars. Therefore, I recommend minor revisions.

Major Concerns:

• There is not much discussion regarding the practical limitations of G-band, particularly the role of attenuation and liquid scattering, on snow retrieval errors. Centimeter radars such as the operational C-band radars that are used in Europe would naturally have much less attenuation uncertainty errors in these snow cases. I would imagine that many if not most snow cases in the UK would have wet snow or mixed precipitation. Therefore, it could be the case that G-band radars aren’t practical for operational purposes. The authors account for riming in their study but they don’t account for liquid coating of snow particles. Do the authors expect their equations to break down considerably for wet snow cases? 
• There isn’t a discussion regarding what IWC/S errors would be expected from centimeter radars. I think this is necessary because it is hard for readers to judge how much better IWC/S retrievals could be, theoretically, compared to, for example, C-band radars. The authors should consider providing some example calculations of the expected uncertainty ranges (theoretical or using the ARTS database) when using C-band radars compared to the G-band radars. Even a calculation for a single PSD with a fixed Dm and some uncertainty range of Dm would really make it clear to readers how much better G-band radars could be in theory compared to more conventional radar wavelengths.

Minor Concerns:

• Figure 4: It seems like there is still quite a bit of variability in 'f' for dendritic aggregates and rimed dendritic aggregates (at least a full order of magnitude at the large end). Is this variability significant when considering the propagation of error into IWC and S? I would suggest the authors use kernel density estimates here to better demonstrate how well the fixed power-law relation actually fits the data; the cluster of symbols makes this difficult to tell.
• Can the authors please describe their vision for how G-band radars should/could be deployed for IWC/S retrievals? The authors state that they expect G-band radars could be used for profiling the bottom 1-km of the atmosphere or perhaps from space-borne platforms. Ka and W band radars are already deployed in spaceborne radars (e.g., GPM-DPR and CoudSat). Should NASA/JAXA consider deploying G-band radars instead? Dm would generally be much smaller at cloud top than at the surface, so maybe G-band radars wouldn’t be as desirable for deployment in space ?

Suggestions/Typos/etc.: 

Lines 6-7: The sentence should read: "This presents the opportunity for straightforward and accurate retrievals of ice microphysics."  

“Straightforward” and “accurate” retrievals are both positive attributes.

Line 59: It is more appropriate to say that Z and IWC are proportional to PSD moments rather than they are the moments themselves.

Line 117: There should be a space between 2 and mm.

Line 177: Inconsistent usage of figure reference. This should probably say “Figs 1 and 2” similar to line 220 rather than spelling out "figure."

This manuscript presents theory and simulations for deriving Ice Water Content (IWC) and Snowfall Rate S directly from stand-alone G-band radar reflectivity and Doppler velocity measurements. The derived retrieval is applied to two case studies with measurements from the GRaCE 200GHz Doppler radar at Chilbolton. Retrieved IWC and S are compared to airborne in-situ IWC and surface gauge measurements, respectively.

The presented retrieval is convincingly introduced by concise simulation and theory. Limitations are well discussed when applied to measurements. The manuscript is timely as it, for the first time, makes use of G-band radar data to derive cold microphysics parameters. I recommend publication with minor revisions after the following comments have been addressed by the authors.

General comments

• The manuscript contains 9 Sections. In order to make the manuscript structure more compact and highlight connections between the Sections, I recommend moving Sections 5-7 as subsections to Section 4, or combining them in a new Section 5, e.g. labeled:Sensitivity to retrieval parameters. For similar reasons, I propose to move the description and discussion of the attenuation correction in Sec 8 (ll 338-366) to a stand-alone subsection.
• The authors compare retrieved IWC and S to rain-gauge and in-situ data, respectively. Here, it would be nice if the G-band performance could be further highlighted compared to state-of-the-art empirical relations obtained from “standard” radars operating at Ka- or W-band, to give the reader an idea on advantages compared to other cloud radars.

Minor comments:

• Fig 1: plotted variable name should be added to y-axis label, also L105, 108
• Figs 9c, d; 10; 13: missing label on colorbars
• Fig 12 caption: description of colors missing

Technical Comments:

• L1-4: sentence is very long. I suggest to split into two: […] proportional to their mass (m). Hence, measurements […]
• L124: snowfall rate S (italics)