Was the forecast right for Washington on Wed Aug 5?
Washington, District of Columbia · daily high temperature in °F · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against the ECMWF IFS analysis
10 days out, 4 models put Washington's Wed Aug 5 high anywhere from 84° to 97°;by the final call, the day before, the field had settled to a median of 88°. The day verified at 86° against the ECMWF IFS analysis, with 0.56 in of precipitation — rain.
AIFS landed closest, off by 0.0°. ECMWF ran 6° warm.
What every model said, at every lead
Daily-high calls for Wed Aug 5 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 Washington scoreboard shows them, labelled.
| Lead | AIFS | AIGFS | ECMWF | GEM | GFS | ICON | UKMO | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10d · 2026-07-26 | 85° | 84° | 87° | — | 97° | — | — | 84–97° |
| 9d · 2026-07-27 | 90° | 92° | 97° | 94° | 95° | — | — | 90–97° |
| 8d · 2026-07-28 | 87° | 86° | 91° | 90° | 97° | — | — | 86–97° |
| 7d · 2026-07-29 | 88° | 89° | 86° | 92° | 90° | — | — | 86–92° |
| 6d · 2026-07-30 | 87° | 86° | 80° | 86° | 85° | 93° | 91° | 80–93° |
| 5d · 2026-07-31 | 87° | 90° | 88° | 82° | 83° | 90° | 92° | 82–92° |
| 4d · 2026-08-01 | 86° | 89° | 83° | 87° | 92° | 89° | 89° | 83–92° |
| 3d · 2026-08-02 | 85° | 85° | 82° | 87° | 88° | 89° | 90° | 82–90° |
| 2d · 2026-08-03 | 85° | 81° | 89° | 87° | 81° | 83° | 85° | 81–89° |
| 1d · 2026-08-04 | 86° | 85° | 92° | 90° | 84° | 89° | 88° | 84–92° |
| actual | 86° |
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 Washington — 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.