The hydroxyl radical has been generated by the excimer laser photolysis of nitrous acid at 248 nm. Rotationally-resolved excitation spectra in the wavenumber range 32170–32745 cm−1of the hydroxyl (OH) radical obtained by the Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) technique have been assigned. The excitation spectra have been recorded both for a static precursor and a supersonic jet expansion. Jet-cooled spectra of the OH radical exhibit rotational cooling and allow comparison with the static cell spectra in terms of population distributions of low-lying rotational levels.