The Spread

Was the forecast right for Houston on Fri Aug 7?

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

11 days out, 4 models put Houston's Fri Aug 7 high anywhere from 86° to 98°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 94°. ERA5 says the day verified at 94° with 0.04 in of precipitation — drizzle.

ECMWF landed closest, off by 0.2°. GFS ran 4° hot.

11 days out the models said 86–98; it hit 94. ECMWF led (off 0.2°F); GFS ran 4°F 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 86° 94° 98° 97° 86–98°
10d · 2026-07-28 91° 91° 95° 103° 91–103°
9d · 2026-07-29 93° 96° 95° 96° 93–96°
8d · 2026-07-30 92° 98° 96° 94° 99° 92–99°
7d · 2026-07-31 94° 98° 96° 93° 98° 93–98°
6d · 2026-08-01 92° 95° 94° 85° 102° 95° 85–102°
5d · 2026-08-02 90° 95° 95° 91° 96° 93° 90° 90–96°
4d · 2026-08-03 93° 96° 95° 95° 98° 95° 90° 90–98°
3d · 2026-08-04 91° 96° 93° 93° 98° 94° 96° 91–98°
2d · 2026-08-05 92° 96° 92° 94° 99° 92° 92° 92–99°
1d · 2026-08-06 92° 97° 92° 88° 96° 91° 96° 88–97°
0d · 2026-08-07 94° 96° 94° 93° 98° 93° 95° 93–98°
actual 94°

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.