The Spread

Was the forecast right for San Francisco on Sun Aug 2?

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

6 days out, 6 models put San Francisco's Sun Aug 2 high anywhere from 65° to 81°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 74°. ERA5 says the day verified at 72° — clear.

GEM landed closest, off by 0.6°. GFS ran 11° hot.

6 days out the models said 65–81; it hit 72. GEM led (off 0.6°); GFS ran 11° 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 Sun Aug 2 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
6d · 2026-07-27 76° 81° 65° 70° 76° 66° 65–81°
5d · 2026-07-28 76° 77° 70° 70° 70° 68° 75° 68–77°
4d · 2026-07-29 79° 75° 71° 68° 74° 66° 75° 66–79°
3d · 2026-07-30 77° 77° 71° 70° 74° 66° 76° 66–77°
2d · 2026-07-31 78° 78° 71° 71° 75° 68° 77° 68–78°
1d · 2026-08-01 77° 81° 71° 72° 84° 67° 76° 67–84°
0d · 2026-08-02 77° 81° 71° 71° 83° 67° 74° 67–83°
actual 72°

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.