Evapotranspiration is an important parameter for hydrological, meteorological and agricultural studies. However, the calculation of actual evapotranspiration is very challenging and costly. Therefore, Potential Evapotranspiration (PET) is typically calculated using meteorological data to calculate actual evapotranspiration. However, it is very difficult to get complete and accurate data from meteorology stations in, rural and mountainous regions. This study examined the availability of the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) reanalysis data set as an alternative to meteorological observation stations in the computation of potential annual and seasonal evapotranspiration. The PET calculations using the CFSR reanalysis dataset for the period 1987-2017 were compared to data observed at 259 weather stations observed in Turkey. As a result of the assessments, it was determined that the seasons in which the CFSR reanalysis data set had the best prediction performance were the winter (C'= 0.76 and PBias = -3.77) and the autumn (C' = 0.75 and PBias = -12.10). The worst performance was observed for the summer season. The performance of the annual prediction was determined as C'= 0.60 and PBias = -15.27. These findings indicate that the results of the PET calculation using the CFSR reanalysis data set are relatively successful for the study area. However, the data should be evaluated with observation data before being used especially in the summer models.