Converting rainfall to runoff is at the center of surface water modeling. Estimating runoff when only daily total rainfall is known has been primarily estimated through the runoff curve approach developed by the USDA Soil Conservation Service. Such a method has to attempt to account for soil type, slope, and land management. For many years the curve number approach has been subject of support and criticism but it remains the primary method used in most daily incrementing models. We sought an alternative procedure that would be more sensitive to soil management and the known seasonal variations in rainfall intensity, yet only use the daily rainfall. We used hourly rainfall records with a time to ponding approach to estimate how much of the daily rainfall exceeded the infiltration capacity. The procedure requires an input of macropore saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksmacro). We found marked differences in daily rainfall-runoff relationships between the warm and cool seasons for fixed Ksmacro and the Ksmacro values were very sensitive in determining to the rainfall-runoff relationship. We used hourly rainfall from several weather stations in the USA and Australia to develop the model and found that the daily air temperature was relatively closely related to the rainfall-runoff relationships found. We believe the method has promise when modeling the soil water balance when used with ponding capacity and known slopes.