Was the forecast right for Washington on Fri Aug 28?
Washington, District of Columbia · daily high temperature in °F · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against the DCA observations
9 days out, 5 models put Washington's Fri Aug 28 high anywhere from 80° to 90°;by the final call, the day before, the field had settled to a median of 86°. The day verified at 90° against the DCA observations — thunderstorms.
GFS landed closest, off by 0.6°. AIFS ran 5° cool.
What every model said, at every lead
Daily-high calls for Fri Aug 28 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9d · 2026-08-19 | 85° | 81° | 80° | 90° | 90° | — | — | 80–90° |
| 8d · 2026-08-20 | 84° | 86° | 84° | 90° | 88° | — | — | 84–90° |
| 7d · 2026-08-21 | 85° | 83° | 87° | 85° | 92° | — | — | 83–92° |
| 6d · 2026-08-22 | 86° | 88° | 87° | 88° | 90° | 91° | 88° | 86–91° |
| 5d · 2026-08-23 | 85° | 88° | 86° | 87° | 93° | 88° | 89° | 85–93° |
| 4d · 2026-08-24 | 86° | 85° | 86° | 86° | 87° | 86° | 89° | 85–89° |
| 3d · 2026-08-25 | 86° | 87° | 89° | 86° | 84° | 82° | 88° | 82–89° |
| 2d · 2026-08-26 | 85° | 88° | 86° | 87° | 88° | 84° | 84° | 84–88° |
| 1d · 2026-08-27 | 85° | 88° | 86° | 86° | 91° | 85° | 87° | 85–91° |
| actual | 90° |
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 DCA 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.