Dear Dr. Bohon (Reviewer 1): 

We thank you for your kind comments and constructive suggestions for improvement. We have responded to your comments in-line below.

In the manuscript "Identifying community values related to heat: recommendations for forecast and health risk communication" the authors outline how they analyse and evaluate public comments on the NWS Facebook page related to heat risk in Phoenix, AZ. They determine that there are 2 key "commonplaces", or community norms or values, that describe and challenge heat related threat assessment in Phoenix - "the normalization of heat" and "heat as a marker of community identity." They then describe ways that these commonplaces make the communication of heat related messaging difficult, as well as ways to utilize these commonplaces in future messaging. The nuances in understanding an at-risk populations perception of a hazard is critical to effectively messaging about that hazard in such a way that people are motivated to take protective action. By identifying some of these critical nuances the authors are providing an important roadmap to communicators about how to message more appropriately and effectively.

The approach that they take to evaluate the Facebook messages is robust, and their description of the issues is clear and sound. However, the manuscript would be of greater value to communicators looking to improve messaging using these findings if the authors include additional information and suggestions around how to utilize the identified commonplaces when creating heat warning messaging campaigns. For instance, they rightly suggest that additional language should be used besides "excessive heat" etc. What might be more appropriate or descriptive terms? Can they offer a more extensive list of potential suggestions as to how to reframe the commonplace of community membership to inspire people towards action? 

*We appreciate the recommendation to provide examples of how communicators can use the paper’s findings to improve messaging. We will provide a series of examples informed by the current study and any supporting “best practices” reported in the literature. Given that commonplaces can vary by location, we will focus on providing examples that are suggestive rather than prescriptive.

Additionally, were there any examples of messaging that was found to inspire action through changing the commonplace narratives that could be used as a template? 

*Our analysis concluded with the identification of commonplaces and did not extend into their potential use (and public response). However, we will review more recent NWS Facebook posts about heat (e.g., that may have been informed by the commonplaces identified) to determine whether there are examples of public responses indicating that action was taken.

Regardless, a list or table of suggested messaging could be very helpful for science communicators tasks with creating copy around dangerous heat events. 

*We agree and will include a list or table of examples as recommended.

Although it may be beyond the scope of this work it would be interesting to hear the authors thoughts on the efficacy of different types of hazard messaging on social media - are videos, infographics, photos or articles more effective for communicating risk to different populations?

*This is a good question. We will revisit the data to determine whether it allows us to comment on which mediums might be more effective in communicating hat risk. However, given that we are unable to know the demographics of the individuals who respond to NWS Facebook posts, we won’t be able to comment specifically on whether different mediums are more effective for communicating risk to different populations.

Dear Reviewer 2:

Our thanks for your positive and helpful feedback. We have responded to your comments in-line below.

This is a well-written paper on a topic of growing importance. As extreme heat events become more frequent across the world, we should be taking lessons from places like Phoenix where extreme heat is already commonplace and applying them more generally for risk communication. I have only a few suggestions for revision, as follows:

- Introduction: I’d like to call the authors’ attention to a recently published paper in Weather, Climate, and Society that analyzed Twitter posts on extreme heat from NWS accounts, which would be a relevant citation in the literature review: https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-20-0039.1

*We appreciate the reviewer alerting us to this publication and will add it to our revised manuscript (as well as any relevant discussion).

- Methods: I’d suggest providing more information on the coding process: how many coders were involved, and was intercoder reliability measured?

*We are happy to add additional information regarding the coding process.

Minor suggestions:

- Page 2, line 32: I’d suggest specifying that extreme heat is the deadliest hazard in the US, which is what the cited reference supports. 

*Thank you for highlighting this point – we will modify the text to include “in the US.”

- Abstract, line 15: possible typo, should be “community identity”

*Thank you for catching this typo – we will correct it.