Variations of soil water content under nonirrigated sod at Ottawa during 10 seasons were analyzed using 5-day means of daily resistance readings from Colman units. A meteorological water budget making use of standard climatic data and accounting for physical properties of the soil provided estimates of soil water which resembled the measured values. The coefficient of determination for 5-day means of observed soil water, correlated with the estimates, varied from 0.34 in a wet season to 0.84 in a dry season, and was 0.73 over the whole 10-year period. Standard errors of estimates were between 4 and 25% of the seasonal mean of available soil moisture, and 15% for the total period. It was concluded that, for climatic and soil classification purposes, estimates from this meteorological budgeting technique are sufficiently accurate to be used for interpreting plant–soil–water interactions over past periods, for which climatological but not soil water observations are available.