The Spread

Was the forecast right for San Francisco on Fri Jul 31?

San Francisco, California · daily high temperature · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against ERA5

4 days out, 7 models put San Francisco's Fri Jul 31 high anywhere from 64° to 80°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 73°. ERA5 says the day verified at 69° — clear.

ECMWF landed closest, off by 1.7°. AIGFS ran 6° hot.

4 days out the models said 64–80; it hit 69. ECMWF led (off 1.7°); AIGFS ran 6° 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 Fri Jul 31 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 San Francisco scoreboard shows them, labelled.

Lead AIFSAIGFSECMWFGEMGFSICONUKMO Range
4d · 2026-07-27 74° 80° 67° 64° 74° 65° 68° 64–80°
3d · 2026-07-28 75° 78° 68° 66° 74° 66° 76° 66–78°
2d · 2026-07-29 74° 76° 69° 67° 70° 65° 76° 65–76°
1d · 2026-07-30 73° 75° 68° 67° 75° 64° 73° 64–75°
0d · 2026-07-31 73° 75° 67° 66° 73° 64° 73° 64–75°
actual 69°

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 San Francisco — 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.