The Spread

Was the forecast right for Phoenix on Wed Aug 12?

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

13 days out, 4 models put Phoenix's Wed Aug 12 high anywhere from 36° to 41°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 38°. ERA5 says the day verified at 35° with 15.0 mm of precipitation — rain.

AIFS landed closest, off by 0.5°. ECMWF ran 5° hot.

13 days out the models said 36–41; it hit 35. AIFS led (off 0.5°C); ECMWF ran 5°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 Wed Aug 12 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 Phoenix scoreboard shows them, labelled.

Lead AIFSAIGFSECMWFGEMGFSICONUKMO Range
15d · 2026-07-28 39° 40° 39–40°
14d · 2026-07-29 33° 38° 40° 33–40°
13d · 2026-07-30 36° 38° 38° 41° 36–41°
12d · 2026-07-31 41° 36° 38° 38° 36–41°
11d · 2026-08-01 33° 37° 34° 41° 33–41°
10d · 2026-08-02 39° 40° 38° 38° 38–40°
9d · 2026-08-03 38° 41° 34° 40° 34–41°
8d · 2026-08-04 37° 38° 40° 40° 41° 37–41°
7d · 2026-08-05 37° 39° 37° 42° 40° 37–42°
6d · 2026-08-06 34° 38° 40° 40° 40° 34° 34–40°
5d · 2026-08-07 34° 36° 38° 40° 39° 34° 37° 34–40°
4d · 2026-08-08 34° 37° 39° 32° 38° 32° 34° 32–39°
3d · 2026-08-09 35° 35° 40° 32° 36° 34° 38° 32–40°
2d · 2026-08-10 34° 35° 39° 34° 39° 34° 34° 34–39°
1d · 2026-08-11 34° 33° 40° 33° 39° 32° 34° 32–40°
0d · 2026-08-12 34° 38° 40° 38° 39° 38° 38° 34–40°
actual 35°

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 Phoenix — 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.