Was the forecast right for Denver on Sun Aug 2?
Denver, Colorado · daily high temperature · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against ERA5
8 days out, 5 models put Denver's Sun Aug 2 high anywhere from 93° to 105°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 101°. ERA5 says the day verified at 102° — partly cloudy.
ECMWF landed closest, off by 0.1°. GEM ran 7° cold.
What every model said, at every lead
Daily-high calls for Sun Aug 2 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 Denver scoreboard shows them, labelled.
| Lead | AIFS | AIGFS | ECMWF | GEM | GFS | ICON | UKMO | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8d · 2026-07-25 | 93° | 95° | 100° | 97° | 105° | — | — | 93–105° |
| 6d · 2026-07-27 | 98° | 99° | 99° | 97° | 105° | 100° | — | 97–105° |
| 5d · 2026-07-28 | 99° | 96° | 103° | 94° | 102° | 98° | 100° | 94–103° |
| 4d · 2026-07-29 | 99° | 97° | 103° | 96° | 101° | 100° | 101° | 96–103° |
| 3d · 2026-07-30 | 99° | 98° | 101° | 96° | 100° | 100° | 101° | 96–101° |
| 2d · 2026-07-31 | 100° | 99° | 102° | 94° | 102° | 101° | 101° | 94–102° |
| 1d · 2026-08-01 | 100° | 100° | 102° | 96° | 102° | 101° | 102° | 96–102° |
| 0d · 2026-08-02 | 101° | 100° | 102° | 96° | 102° | 102° | 101° | 96–102° |
| actual | 102° |
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 Denver — 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.