The Spread

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

Salt Lake City, Utah · daily high temperature in °C · 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 26° to 38°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 30°. ERA5 says the day verified at 31° with 2.5 mm of precipitation — drizzle.

GFS landed closest, off by 0.2°. AIFS ran 5° cold.

14 days out the models said 26–38; it hit 31. GFS led (off 0.2°C); AIFS ran 5°C 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 30° 38° 30–38°
14d · 2026-07-29 26° 34° 36° 38° 26–38°
13d · 2026-07-30 32° 29° 35° 37° 29–37°
12d · 2026-07-31 30° 29° 35° 37° 29–37°
11d · 2026-08-01 28° 30° 34° 37° 28–37°
10d · 2026-08-02 32° 29° 32° 35° 29–35°
9d · 2026-08-03 26° 31° 31° 31° 36° 26–36°
8d · 2026-08-04 29° 31° 35° 32° 36° 29–36°
7d · 2026-08-05 28° 33° 32° 33° 39° 28–39°
6d · 2026-08-06 28° 31° 34° 32° 37° 34° 34° 28–37°
5d · 2026-08-07 27° 29° 34° 30° 37° 34° 32° 27–37°
4d · 2026-08-08 26° 26° 32° 30° 34° 30° 34° 26–34°
3d · 2026-08-09 26° 30° 32° 35° 34° 30° 32° 26–35°
2d · 2026-08-10 27° 30° 30° 36° 34° 31° 30° 27–36°
1d · 2026-08-11 27° 29° 29° 34° 29° 32° 30° 27–34°
0d · 2026-08-12 26° 30° 29° 30° 31° 30° 29° 26–31°
actual 31°

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.