Was the forecast right for Chicago on Mon Oct 12?
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 Mon Oct 12 high anywhere from 59° to 77°;by the final call, the day before, the field had settled to a median of 83°. The day verified at 88° against the MDW observations — drizzle.
ICON landed closest, off by 0.6°. ECMWF ran 6° cool.
What every model said, at every lead
Daily-high calls for Mon Oct 12 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 · 2026-09-27 | — | 69° | — | — | 64° | — | — | 64–69° |
| 14d · 2026-09-28 | 64° | 59° | 60° | — | 77° | — | — | 59–77° |
| 13d · 2026-09-29 | 53° | 65° | 67° | — | 61° | — | — | 53–67° |
| 12d · 2026-09-30 | 51° | 65° | 69° | — | 62° | — | — | 51–69° |
| 11d · 2026-10-01 | 59° | 60° | 78° | — | 81° | — | — | 59–81° |
| 10d · 2026-10-02 | 73° | 65° | 79° | — | 74° | — | — | 65–79° |
| 9d · 2026-10-03 | 78° | 80° | 67° | 72° | 69° | — | — | 67–80° |
| 8d · 2026-10-04 | 76° | 71° | 77° | 76° | 80° | — | — | 71–80° |
| 7d · 2026-10-05 | 80° | 64° | 70° | 78° | 76° | — | — | 64–80° |
| 6d · 2026-10-06 | 80° | 80° | 68° | 73° | 66° | 65° | — | 65–80° |
| 5d · 2026-10-07 | 80° | 84° | 76° | 79° | 83° | 81° | 78° | 76–84° |
| 4d · 2026-10-08 | 82° | 81° | 81° | 78° | 84° | 86° | 81° | 78–86° |
| 3d · 2026-10-09 | 82° | 83° | 80° | 81° | 86° | 86° | 83° | 80–86° |
| 2d · 2026-10-10 | 82° | 84° | 82° | 82° | 88° | 87° | 84° | 82–88° |
| 1d · 2026-10-11 | 82° | 83° | 82° | 87° | 87° | 87° | 82° | 82–87° |
| actual | 88° |
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.