Was the forecast right for Houston on Mon Aug 3?
Houston, Texas · daily high temperature in °F · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against the ECMWF IFS analysis
8 days out, 5 models put Houston's Mon Aug 3 high anywhere from 85° to 95°;by the final call, the day before, the field had settled to a median of 98°. The day verified at 99° against the ECMWF IFS analysis, with 0.04 in of precipitation — drizzle.
ECMWF landed closest, off by 0.2°. AIFS ran 4° cool.
What every model said, at every lead
Daily-high calls for Mon Aug 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 Houston scoreboard shows them, labelled.
| Lead | AIFS | AIGFS | ECMWF | GEM | GFS | ICON | UKMO | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8d · 2026-07-26 | 91° | 87° | 94° | 85° | 95° | — | — | 85–95° |
| 7d · 2026-07-27 | 88° | 92° | 96° | 98° | 99° | — | — | 88–99° |
| 6d · 2026-07-28 | 92° | 97° | 98° | 96° | 101° | 97° | 95° | 92–101° |
| 5d · 2026-07-29 | 92° | 96° | 99° | 94° | 102° | 95° | 98° | 92–102° |
| 4d · 2026-07-30 | 95° | 96° | 100° | 98° | 105° | 97° | 102° | 95–105° |
| 3d · 2026-07-31 | 94° | 96° | 102° | 99° | 106° | 97° | 100° | 94–106° |
| 2d · 2026-08-01 | 94° | 96° | 100° | 98° | 105° | 97° | 100° | 94–105° |
| 1d · 2026-08-02 | 95° | 97° | 99° | 99° | 97° | 98° | 99° | 95–99° |
| actual | 99° |
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 Houston — 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 ECMWF IFS analysis (temperature_2m_max). 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.