We thank Leslie & Speer (2003) for their comments on our paper (Reason & Jackson 2002). These comments are centred around the possible interpretation of the synoptic evolution of this complex coastal ridging event over southeastern Australia in terms of the original typing scheme proposed by Speer & Leslie (1997). We should like to emphasize at the outset of this Reply that the purpose of Reason & Jackson (2002) was not to provide a synoptic classification of this event or an interpretation in terms of Speer & Leslie's scheme but rather to present a simulation of this complex event with a mesoscale numerical model (in this case, RAMS). Previous RAMS simulations of Australian coastal ridging events by us (Reason et al. 1999; Tory et al. 2001) gave some confidence in the ability of this model to successfully capture the evolution of strong post-frontal coastal ridging. The 30/12/96-1/1/97 event analysed in Reason & Jackson (2002) was not as straightforward a case and it was therefore of some interest to see whether the model could capture the more complex evolution and hybrid nature of this weather system whose synoptic interpretation is difficult and more open to debate.