Evapotranspiration causes uncertain changes in volumetric soil moisture content (θ) of the earth surface, which is considerably controlled by weather parameters like rainfall and ambient temperature. Accurate measurement of temporal variation and spatial distribution of moisture within a soil mass soil based on atmospheric changes is very challenging. Numerical modeling with any suitable computer code might be useful in such cases. Thus, Hydrus-2D modeling of soil moisture variation in the soil at Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) in Bhubaneswar is undertaken as the main objective of the present study to investigate moisture dynamics in top soil layer. For the study, the soil moisture in OUAT land was measured daily by 5 TM water content sensor for the duration of two years spanning from January 2021 to December 2022. Meteorological data for these 2 years are collected from a nearby weather station at OUAT and used for calculating evapotranspiration (ET) based on five different well-known ET models. Soil hydraulic parameters of OUAT land were also evaluated by the laboratory investigation. The evapotranspiration so calculated along with precipitation and materials properties were then assigned as the input in Hydrus simulations. The simulated results are found to be in good agreement with field observations. It is validated by the values of Pearson’s coefficient of determination (r2) and Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) which are found to be 0.83 and 0.84 respectively. The soil moisture simulation was most accurate when measured soil parameters along with atmospheric boundary involving Penman–Monteith (PM) model were considered as the model inputs. Output results were thus analyzed to investigate soil moisture dynamics in the top soil layer.