The Spread

Was the forecast right for Salt Lake City on Wed Aug 12?

Salt Lake City, Utah · daily high temperature in °F · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against ERA5

14 days out, 4 models put Salt Lake City's Wed Aug 12 high anywhere from 79° to 100°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 86°. ERA5 says the day verified at 88° with 0.1 in of precipitation — drizzle.

GFS landed closest, off by 0.3°. AIFS ran 8° cold.

14 days out the models said 79–100; it hit 88. GFS led (off 0.3°F); AIFS ran 8°F cold.
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 Salt Lake City scoreboard shows them, labelled.

Lead AIFSAIGFSECMWFGEMGFSICONUKMO Range
15d · 2026-07-28 87° 101° 87–101°
14d · 2026-07-29 79° 92° 98° 100° 79–100°
13d · 2026-07-30 89° 85° 95° 99° 85–99°
12d · 2026-07-31 86° 84° 96° 99° 84–99°
11d · 2026-08-01 82° 86° 94° 99° 82–99°
10d · 2026-08-02 89° 85° 90° 95° 85–95°
9d · 2026-08-03 78° 88° 87° 88° 98° 78–98°
8d · 2026-08-04 84° 87° 95° 89° 96° 84–96°
7d · 2026-08-05 83° 91° 90° 92° 102° 83–102°
6d · 2026-08-06 82° 88° 94° 90° 98° 93° 94° 82–98°
5d · 2026-08-07 80° 85° 93° 87° 99° 94° 90° 80–99°
4d · 2026-08-08 78° 79° 90° 87° 94° 87° 94° 78–94°
3d · 2026-08-09 78° 86° 89° 95° 93° 86° 89° 78–95°
2d · 2026-08-10 80° 85° 86° 96° 92° 89° 86° 80–96°
1d · 2026-08-11 81° 85° 85° 92° 84° 90° 86° 81–92°
0d · 2026-08-12 80° 87° 85° 86° 88° 87° 84° 80–88°
actual 88°

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 Salt Lake City — 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.