The Spread

Was the forecast right for Boston on Thu Aug 13?

Boston, Massachusetts · daily high temperature in °C · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against ERA5

13 days out, 4 models put Boston's Thu Aug 13 high anywhere from 20° to 29°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 28°. ERA5 says the day verified at 28° with 1.5 mm of precipitation — drizzle.

ICON landed closest, off by 0.1°. ECMWF ran 1° cold.

13 days out the models said 20–29; it hit 28. ICON led (off 0.1°C); ECMWF ran 1°C cold.
The shareable card for this receipt — what this page looks like pasted into a thread.

What every model said, at every lead

Daily-high calls for Thu Aug 13 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 Boston scoreboard shows them, labelled.

Lead AIFSAIGFSECMWFGEMGFSICONUKMO Range
15d · 2026-07-29 29° 20° 20–29°
14d · 2026-07-30 29° 30° 21° 21–30°
13d · 2026-07-31 27° 25° 29° 20° 20–29°
12d · 2026-08-01 25° 25° 26° 22° 22–26°
11d · 2026-08-02 26° 26° 34° 22° 22–34°
10d · 2026-08-03 26° 29° 27° 21° 21–29°
9d · 2026-08-04 27° 30° 26° 26° 26–30°
8d · 2026-08-05 28° 27° 31° 28° 26° 26–31°
7d · 2026-08-06 27° 31° 30° 29° 28° 27–31°
6d · 2026-08-07 27° 25° 31° 26° 26° 28° 25–31°
5d · 2026-08-08 28° 30° 26° 30° 30° 30° 27° 26–30°
4d · 2026-08-09 28° 31° 28° 24° 29° 32° 26° 24–32°
3d · 2026-08-10 28° 30° 32° 28° 30° 32° 30° 28–32°
2d · 2026-08-11 27° 30° 31° 26° 28° 31° 30° 26–31°
1d · 2026-08-12 27° 28° 30° 31° 25° 30° 29° 25–31°
0d · 2026-08-13 27° 28° 27° 29° 29° 28° 29° 27–29°
actual 28°

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 Boston — 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 ERA5 reanalysis (temperature_2m_max). Archive depth varies by city; receipts exist only for dates the archive watched arrive.