The Spread

Was the forecast right for London on Tue Aug 18?

London, England · daily high temperature in °F · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against the ECMWF IFS analysis

7 days out, 6 models put London's Tue Aug 18 high anywhere from 68° to 76°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 77°. The day verified at 74° against the ECMWF IFS analysis, with 0.04 in of precipitation — drizzle.

AIGFS landed closest, off by 0.8°. GFS ran 7° hot.

7 days out the models said 68–76; it hit 74. AIGFS led (off 0.8°F); GFS ran 7°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 Tue Aug 18 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 London scoreboard shows them, labelled.

Lead AIFSAIGFSECMWFGEMGFSICONUKMO Range
7d · 2026-08-11 70° 68° 73° 73° 71° 76° 68–76°
6d · 2026-08-12 72° 69° 73° 74° 76° 89° 74° 69–89°
5d · 2026-08-13 72° 78° 78° 76° 71° 79° 80° 71–80°
4d · 2026-08-14 74° 75° 82° 79° 83° 76° 78° 74–83°
3d · 2026-08-15 74° 75° 76° 80° 80° 81° 74° 74–81°
2d · 2026-08-16 73° 74° 79° 78° 77° 76° 77° 73–79°
1d · 2026-08-17 74° 75° 77° 78° 77° 76° 77° 74–78°
0d · 2026-08-18 75° 75° 77° 80° 81° 76° 78° 75–81°
actual 74°

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 London — 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 the ECMWF IFS analysis (temperature_2m_max). Archive depth varies by city; receipts exist only for dates the archive watched arrive.