Was the forecast right for Chicago on Sun Aug 2?
Chicago, Illinois · daily high temperature in °F · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against the ECMWF IFS analysis
7 days out, 5 models put Chicago's Sun Aug 2 high anywhere from 74° to 89°;by the final call, the day before, the field had settled to a median of 73°. The day verified at 72° against the ECMWF IFS analysis, with 0.02 in of precipitation — drizzle.
GFS landed closest, off by 0.0°. GEM ran 5° warm.
What every model said, at every lead
Daily-high calls for Sun Aug 2 as each model's runs approached it — the last archived run per day. NBM and The Spread's own blend are consensus products and stay out of these ranges and rankings; the Chicago scoreboard shows them, labelled.
| Lead | AIFS | AIGFS | ECMWF | GEM | GFS | ICON | UKMO | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7d · 2026-07-26 | 78° | 79° | 78° | 74° | 89° | — | — | 74–89° |
| 6d · 2026-07-27 | 77° | 74° | 79° | 76° | 78° | 82° | 76° | 74–82° |
| 5d · 2026-07-28 | 75° | 74° | 71° | 75° | 73° | 75° | 74° | 71–75° |
| 4d · 2026-07-29 | 75° | 73° | 72° | 76° | 74° | 76° | 71° | 71–76° |
| 3d · 2026-07-30 | 73° | 71° | 71° | 76° | 70° | 75° | 73° | 70–76° |
| 2d · 2026-07-31 | 74° | 72° | 71° | 75° | 73° | 76° | 72° | 71–76° |
| 1d · 2026-08-01 | 73° | 72° | 70° | 77° | 72° | 77° | 74° | 70–77° |
| actual | 72° |
Read it honestly
This is one date, not a league table. A model can win a day it deserved to lose; rankings only mean something over a window. For that, see which model has been most accurate in Chicago — or every city The Spread scores.
Forecasts are what each model's archived runs said at the time, captured at The Spread's sweep times — never reconstructed after the fact. Truth is the ECMWF IFS analysis (temperature_2m_max). The actual values are the ones in hand when this receipt was settled, usually 2 days after the date; a correction published after that is not carried into it. Archive depth varies by city; receipts exist only for dates the archive watched arrive.