We have updated our Chinese data set to produce a complete set of 31 stations with soil moisture observations of total soil moisture in the top 1 m observed three times per month during the growing season (April - October) for the period 1981-1999. We use these observations to analyze the soil moisture climatology of central and northern China and to evaluate model simulations of soil moisture from the ERA40 and NCEP/NCAR reanalyses. While the interannual variability of soil moisture is similar to the observations in the ERA40 and regular NCEP/NCAR reanalysis, only in the NCEP/NCAR II reanalysis, which drives the soil with observed precipitation rather than model-generated precipitation and does not nudge soil moisture, does the calculation correspond closely to the observations. This updated data set will also prove useful for climate model evaluation and ground truth for remote sensing in a region characterized by a monsoon-dominated summer.