Was the forecast right for Chicago on Wed Oct 21?
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 21 high anywhere from 53° to 68°;by the final call, the day before, the field had settled to a median of 70°. The day verified at 71° against the MDW observations — clear.
GFS landed closest, off by 0.1°. UKMO ran 4° cool.
What every model said, at every lead
Daily-high calls for Wed Oct 21 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 · 2026-10-06 | — | 56° | — | — | 61° | — | — | 56–61° |
| 14d · 2026-10-07 | 53° | 68° | 61° | — | 57° | — | — | 53–68° |
| 13d · 2026-10-08 | 65° | 64° | 63° | — | 66° | — | — | 63–66° |
| 12d · 2026-10-09 | 70° | 74° | 69° | — | 66° | — | — | 66–74° |
| 11d · 2026-10-10 | 63° | 68° | 68° | — | 68° | — | — | 63–68° |
| 10d · 2026-10-11 | 63° | 64° | 68° | — | 78° | — | — | 63–78° |
| 9d · 2026-10-12 | — | 73° | 66° | 69° | 70° | — | — | 66–73° |
| 8d · 2026-10-13 | 72° | 68° | 72° | 67° | 69° | — | — | 67–72° |
| 7d · 2026-10-14 | 69° | 71° | 66° | 64° | 73° | — | — | 64–73° |
| 6d · 2026-10-15 | 69° | 70° | 67° | 65° | 71° | 67° | 64° | 64–71° |
| 5d · 2026-10-16 | 69° | 70° | 69° | 62° | 69° | 66° | 67° | 62–70° |
| 4d · 2026-10-17 | 68° | 69° | 67° | 64° | 70° | 66° | 64° | 64–70° |
| 3d · 2026-10-18 | 68° | 69° | 66° | 66° | 70° | 68° | 63° | 63–70° |
| 2d · 2026-10-19 | 69° | 70° | 67° | 68° | 71° | 69° | 65° | 65–71° |
| 1d · 2026-10-20 | 69° | 70° | 68° | 72° | 71° | 70° | 67° | 67–72° |
| actual | 71° |
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.