Was the forecast right for Chicago on Wed Oct 14?
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 Wed Oct 14 high anywhere from 50° to 78°;by the final call, the day before, the field had settled to a median of 69°. The day verified at 67° against the MDW observations, with 0.02 in of precipitation — thunderstorms.
AIFS landed closest, off by 0.1°. GEM ran 4° warm.
What every model said, at every lead
Daily-high calls for Wed Oct 14 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 · 2026-09-29 | — | 67° | — | — | 79° | — | — | 67–79° |
| 14d · 2026-09-30 | 50° | 53° | 78° | — | 69° | — | — | 50–78° |
| 13d · 2026-10-01 | 58° | 61° | 77° | — | 74° | — | — | 58–77° |
| 12d · 2026-10-02 | 49° | 51° | 70° | — | 72° | — | — | 49–72° |
| 11d · 2026-10-03 | 74° | 61° | 62° | — | 76° | — | — | 61–76° |
| 10d · 2026-10-04 | 78° | 48° | 78° | — | 57° | — | — | 48–78° |
| 9d · 2026-10-05 | 58° | 56° | 77° | 74° | 75° | — | — | 56–77° |
| 8d · 2026-10-06 | 54° | 65° | 67° | 69° | 59° | — | — | 54–69° |
| 7d · 2026-10-07 | 56° | 59° | 55° | 58° | 62° | — | — | 55–62° |
| 6d · 2026-10-08 | 62° | 71° | 60° | 73° | 66° | 62° | 59° | 59–73° |
| 5d · 2026-10-09 | 66° | 63° | 64° | 64° | 61° | 67° | 61° | 61–67° |
| 4d · 2026-10-10 | 68° | 62° | 70° | 64° | 70° | 68° | 70° | 62–70° |
| 3d · 2026-10-11 | 66° | 66° | 67° | 69° | 73° | 69° | 74° | 66–74° |
| 2d · 2026-10-12 | — | 64° | 73° | 76° | 70° | 70° | 68° | 64–76° |
| 1d · 2026-10-13 | 67° | 65° | 70° | 71° | 70° | 69° | 69° | 65–71° |
| actual | 67° |
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.