The Spread

Was the forecast right for Denver on Sun Aug 9?

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

13 days out, 4 models put Denver's Sun Aug 9 high anywhere from 29° to 40°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 35°. ERA5 says the day verified at 36° with 0.8 mm of precipitation — drizzle.

ECMWF landed closest, off by 0.3°. GEM ran 4° cold.

13 days out the models said 29–40; it hit 36. ECMWF led (off 0.3°C); GEM ran 4°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 Sun Aug 9 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 AIFSAIGFSECMWFGEMGFSICONUKMO Range
15d · 2026-07-25 29° 35° 29–35°
13d · 2026-07-27 29° 30° 40° 35° 29–40°
12d · 2026-07-28 32° 33° 35° 37° 32–37°
11d · 2026-07-29 33° 25° 37° 37° 25–37°
10d · 2026-07-30 34° 28° 28° 33° 28–34°
9d · 2026-07-31 32° 33° 36° 39° 32–39°
8d · 2026-08-01 30° 30° 40° 34° 39° 30–40°
7d · 2026-08-02 34° 33° 40° 34° 38° 33–40°
6d · 2026-08-03 36° 36° 41° 35° 37° 38° 35–41°
5d · 2026-08-04 35° 35° 38° 34° 38° 37° 38° 34–38°
4d · 2026-08-05 36° 35° 37° 33° 39° 36° 36° 33–39°
3d · 2026-08-06 36° 35° 36° 35° 38° 36° 37° 35–38°
2d · 2026-08-07 35° 35° 36° 34° 37° 37° 36° 34–37°
1d · 2026-08-08 35° 35° 36° 34° 36° 36° 35° 34–36°
0d · 2026-08-09 35° 35° 36° 32° 37° 35° 35° 32–37°
actual 36°

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.