Was the forecast right for Washington on Tue Sep 1?
Washington, District of Columbia · daily high temperature in °F · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against the DCA observations
13 days out, 4 models put Washington's Tue Sep 1 high anywhere from 85° to 96°;by the final call, the day before, the field had settled to a median of 94°. The day verified at 98° against the DCA observations — drizzle.
GFS landed closest, off by 0.6°. ICON ran 6° cool.
What every model said, at every lead
Daily-high calls for Tue Sep 1 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13d · 2026-08-19 | 94° | 90° | 85° | — | 96° | — | — | 85–96° |
| 12d · 2026-08-20 | 73° | 96° | 87° | — | 85° | — | — | 73–96° |
| 11d · 2026-08-21 | 91° | 95° | 76° | — | 95° | — | — | 76–95° |
| 10d · 2026-08-22 | 95° | 85° | 86° | — | 80° | — | — | 80–95° |
| 9d · 2026-08-23 | 88° | 87° | 101° | 93° | 87° | — | — | 87–101° |
| 8d · 2026-08-24 | 96° | 94° | 99° | 97° | 80° | — | — | 80–99° |
| 7d · 2026-08-25 | 97° | 95° | 97° | 96° | 97° | — | — | 95–97° |
| 6d · 2026-08-26 | 94° | 95° | 99° | 97° | 94° | 96° | 93° | 93–99° |
| 5d · 2026-08-27 | 92° | 95° | 98° | 96° | 101° | 94° | 94° | 92–101° |
| 4d · 2026-08-28 | 93° | 94° | 96° | 98° | 89° | 94° | 92° | 89–98° |
| 3d · 2026-08-29 | 94° | 94° | 102° | 99° | 99° | 97° | 95° | 94–102° |
| 2d · 2026-08-30 | 94° | 94° | 102° | 97° | 100° | 97° | 95° | 94–102° |
| 1d · 2026-08-31 | 93° | 94° | 96° | 94° | 99° | 92° | 94° | 92–99° |
| actual | 98° |
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.