HESS Hydrology and Earth System Sciences HESS Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 1607-7938 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/hess-1-227-1997 The United Kingdom Meteorological Office rainfall and evaporation calculation system: MORECS version 2.0-an overview Hough M. N. 1 Jones R. J. A. 2 Meteorological Office, Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 2SZ, UK Soil Survey and Land Research Centre, Silsoe, Bedfordshire, MK45 4DT, UK 30 06 1997 1 2 227 239 Copyright: © 1997 M. N. Hough 1997 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ This article is available from https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/1/227/1997/hess-1-227-1997.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/1/227/1997/hess-1-227-1997.pdf

The operational system known as MORECS which provides estimates of evaporation, soil moisture deficit and effective precipitation under British climatic conditions has been revised as version 2.0. An overview of the new system is described with emphasis on the new additions. The major changes from the older version (Thomson, Barrie and Ayles, 1981) include the introduction of the crop oil-seed rape, a revised treatment of soils and available water capacity and a land use data base which is representative of the 1990s.