Was the forecast right for Chicago on Thu Oct 8?
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 Thu Oct 8 high anywhere from 54° to 71°;by the final call, the day before, the field had settled to a median of 70°. The day verified at 73° against the MDW observations — partly cloudy.
GEM landed closest, off by 0.3°. ECMWF ran 5° cool.
What every model said, at every lead
Daily-high calls for Thu Oct 8 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 · 2026-09-23 | — | 51° | — | — | 68° | — | — | 51–68° |
| 14d · 2026-09-24 | 71° | 61° | 54° | — | 62° | — | — | 54–71° |
| 13d · 2026-09-25 | 74° | 61° | 70° | — | 69° | — | — | 61–74° |
| 12d · 2026-09-26 | 67° | 71° | 68° | — | 63° | — | — | 63–71° |
| 11d · 2026-09-27 | 65° | 69° | 63° | — | 52° | — | — | 52–69° |
| 10d · 2026-09-28 | 66° | 67° | 66° | — | 63° | — | — | 63–67° |
| 9d · 2026-09-29 | 68° | 69° | 69° | 72° | 72° | — | — | 68–72° |
| 8d · 2026-09-30 | 69° | 78° | 65° | 70° | 73° | — | — | 65–78° |
| 7d · 2026-10-01 | 75° | 79° | 74° | 73° | 75° | — | — | 73–79° |
| 6d · 2026-10-02 | 70° | 76° | 71° | 67° | 78° | 72° | 71° | 67–78° |
| 5d · 2026-10-03 | 72° | 78° | 68° | 72° | 73° | 67° | 66° | 66–78° |
| 4d · 2026-10-04 | 68° | 72° | 67° | 67° | 70° | 69° | 69° | 67–72° |
| 3d · 2026-10-05 | 67° | 70° | 66° | 71° | 70° | 67° | 69° | 66–71° |
| 2d · 2026-10-06 | 66° | 68° | 66° | 67° | 69° | 66° | 68° | 66–69° |
| 1d · 2026-10-07 | 69° | 70° | 68° | 73° | 72° | 71° | 70° | 68–73° |
| actual | 73° |
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.