The Spread

Was the forecast right for Houston on Fri Aug 7?

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

11 days out, 4 models put Houston's Fri Aug 7 high anywhere from 30° to 37°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 34°. ERA5 says the day verified at 34° with 1.0 mm of precipitation — drizzle.

ECMWF landed closest, off by 0.1°. GFS ran 2° hot.

11 days out the models said 30–37; it hit 34. ECMWF led (off 0.1°C); GFS ran 2°C hot.
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 Fri Aug 7 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 Houston scoreboard shows them, labelled.

Lead AIFSAIGFSECMWFGEMGFSICONUKMO Range
11d · 2026-07-27 30° 34° 37° — 36° — — 30–37°
10d · 2026-07-28 33° 33° 35° — 39° — — 33–39°
9d · 2026-07-29 34° 36° 35° — 35° — — 34–36°
8d · 2026-07-30 33° 37° 36° 35° 37° — — 33–37°
7d · 2026-07-31 34° 37° 35° 34° 37° — — 34–37°
6d · 2026-08-01 33° 35° 34° 29° 39° 35° — 29–39°
5d · 2026-08-02 32° 35° 35° 33° 35° 34° 32° 32–35°
4d · 2026-08-03 34° 36° 35° 35° 36° 35° 32° 32–36°
3d · 2026-08-04 33° 36° 34° 34° 37° 34° 36° 33–37°
2d · 2026-08-05 34° 35° 33° 35° 37° 34° 33° 33–37°
1d · 2026-08-06 33° 36° 33° 31° 35° 33° 35° 31–36°
0d · 2026-08-07 34° 36° 34° 34° 37° 34° 35° 34–37°
actual 34°

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 Houston — 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.