The REMO 40-year run is a high-resolution data-set for Europe on a regular latitude/longitude grid ranging from 49 W to 71 E and from 29 N to 78 N. The model run was calculated at the GKSS research centre using the state-of-the-art regional model REMO (Jacob and Podzun, 1997) driven by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) re-analyses (Kalnay et al., 1996) at the lateral boundaries. Additional to this conventional approach, a spectral nudging technique (von Storch et al., 2000) was applied to the entire model domain. It keeps the model solution close to the NCEP re-analyses at large scales (> 750 km), for which the highest confidence in the quality of the forcing can be expected, while regional features may evolve independently from the forcing. This is achieved by adding nudging terms in the spectral domain with maximum strengths for small wave numbers and higher model levels. This continuous simulation was calculated on a rotated spherical grid and afterwards transformed to regular latitude/longitude coordinates. To present the values in a rectangular form, missing values were added at the outer boundaries of the integration area. The horizontal resolution of the model run is 0.5 x 0.5 degrees and in the vertical there are 20 model levels. The data sets consist of hourly values from January 1958 to December 1998. Due to an inconsistency between liquid water and clouds in REMO that was found after this run was finished, liquid water could only occur in a grid cell if the whole grid box was over-saturated and subgrid scale condensation was suppressed. This results in a permanent sink of liquid water in the model which leads to less cloud formation and errors in the radiation budget. The near surface temperature should therefore be considered carefully with regard to these errors.