The Spread

Was the forecast right for London on Tue Aug 18?

London, England · daily high temperature in °C · 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 20° to 24°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 25°. The day verified at 23° against the ECMWF IFS analysis, with 1.0 mm of precipitation — drizzle.

AIGFS landed closest, off by 0.4°. GFS ran 4° hot.

7 days out the models said 20–24; it hit 23. AIGFS led (off 0.4°C); GFS ran 4°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 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 21° 20° 23° 23° 22° 24° 20–24°
6d · 2026-08-12 22° 21° 23° 23° 24° 31° 23° 21–31°
5d · 2026-08-13 22° 26° 26° 24° 22° 26° 26° 22–26°
4d · 2026-08-14 23° 24° 28° 26° 28° 25° 26° 23–28°
3d · 2026-08-15 23° 24° 24° 27° 27° 27° 23° 23–27°
2d · 2026-08-16 23° 23° 26° 25° 25° 24° 25° 23–26°
1d · 2026-08-17 23° 24° 25° 26° 25° 24° 25° 23–26°
0d · 2026-08-18 24° 24° 25° 27° 27° 24° 26° 24–27°
actual 23°

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.