Was the forecast right for Chicago on Sat Oct 3?
Chicago, Illinois · daily high temperature in °F · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against the MDW observations
14 days out, 4 models put Chicago's Sat Oct 3 high anywhere from 61° to 70°;by the final call, the day before, the field had settled to a median of 66°. The day verified at 70° against the MDW observations — partly cloudy.
GEM landed closest, off by 0.3°. ECMWF ran 4° cool.
What every model said, at every lead
Daily-high calls for Sat Oct 3 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15d · 2026-09-18 | — | 66° | — | — | 81° | — | — | 66–81° |
| 14d · 2026-09-19 | 70° | 61° | 63° | — | 62° | — | — | 61–70° |
| 13d · 2026-09-20 | 60° | 78° | 70° | — | 83° | — | — | 60–83° |
| 12d · 2026-09-21 | 67° | 63° | 76° | — | 82° | — | — | 63–82° |
| 11d · 2026-09-22 | 69° | 58° | 82° | — | 80° | — | — | 58–82° |
| 10d · 2026-09-23 | 63° | 65° | 73° | — | 72° | — | — | 63–73° |
| 9d · 2026-09-24 | 63° | 67° | 69° | 64° | 69° | — | — | 63–69° |
| 8d · 2026-09-25 | 61° | 63° | 64° | 68° | 82° | — | — | 61–82° |
| 7d · 2026-09-26 | 65° | 67° | 62° | 63° | 68° | — | — | 62–68° |
| 6d · 2026-09-27 | 68° | 64° | 65° | 62° | 63° | 66° | 66° | 62–68° |
| 5d · 2026-09-28 | 65° | 66° | 63° | 61° | 72° | 65° | 66° | 61–72° |
| 4d · 2026-09-29 | 66° | 67° | 63° | 64° | 70° | 68° | 70° | 63–70° |
| 3d · 2026-09-30 | 65° | 66° | 64° | 64° | 70° | 68° | 66° | 64–70° |
| 2d · 2026-10-01 | 66° | 66° | 65° | 66° | 71° | 66° | 65° | 65–71° |
| 1d · 2026-10-02 | 66° | 66° | 66° | 70° | 71° | 66° | 68° | 66–71° |
| actual | 70° |
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 MDW observations. 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.