The Spread

Was the forecast right for San Francisco on Tue Aug 18?

San Francisco, California · daily high temperature in °F · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against the ECMWF IFS analysis

13 days out, 4 models put San Francisco's Tue Aug 18 high anywhere from 64° to 76°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 66°. The day verified at 64° against the ECMWF IFS analysis — cloudy.

GEM landed closest, off by 0.7°. AIGFS ran 9° hot.

13 days out the models said 64–76; it hit 64. GEM led (off 0.7°F); AIGFS ran 9°F 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 Tue Aug 18 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
15d · 2026-08-03 69° 68° 68–69°
14d · 2026-08-04 66° 67° 68° 66–68°
13d · 2026-08-05 69° 67° 64° 76° 64–76°
12d · 2026-08-06 65° 71° 67° 72° 65–72°
11d · 2026-08-07 73° 69° 64° 70° 64–73°
10d · 2026-08-08 72° 74° 65° 70° 65–74°
9d · 2026-08-09 67° 78° 71° 74° 67–78°
8d · 2026-08-10 68° 76° 65° 64° 70° 64–76°
7d · 2026-08-11 68° 66° 66° 63° 71° 63–71°
6d · 2026-08-12 69° 67° 66° 62° 70° 62° 62–70°
5d · 2026-08-13 70° 73° 64° 65° 66° 62° 65° 62–73°
4d · 2026-08-14 72° 68° 67° 62° 69° 63° 65° 62–72°
3d · 2026-08-15 74° 70° 64° 64° 71° 62° 67° 62–74°
2d · 2026-08-16 73° 72° 67° 64° 71° 61° 67° 61–73°
1d · 2026-08-17 72° 73° 68° 65° 70° 62° 66° 62–73°
0d · 2026-08-18 70° 73° 68° 64° 66° 62° 66° 62–73°
actual 64°

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 the ECMWF IFS analysis (temperature_2m_max). Archive depth varies by city; receipts exist only for dates the archive watched arrive.