The Spread

Was the forecast right for San Francisco on Thu Aug 20?

San Francisco, California · daily high temperature in °C · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against the SFOC1 observations

13 days out, 4 models put San Francisco's Thu Aug 20 high anywhere from 18° to 19°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 18°. The day verified at 18° against the SFOC1 observations — cloudy.

ECMWF landed closest, off by 0.3°. AIGFS ran 4° hot.

13 days out the models said 18–19; it hit 18. ECMWF led (off 0.3°C); AIGFS ran 4°C 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 Thu Aug 20 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 · 2026-08-05 17° 23° 17–23°
14d · 2026-08-06 18° 20° 21° 18–21°
13d · 2026-08-07 18° 19° 19° 18° 18–19°
12d · 2026-08-08 22° 22° 19° 22° 19–22°
11d · 2026-08-09 20° 24° 17° 22° 17–24°
10d · 2026-08-10 19° 20° 18° 28° 18–28°
9d · 2026-08-11 22° 22° 19° 21° 19–22°
8d · 2026-08-12 21° 20° 20° 17° 20° 17–21°
7d · 2026-08-13 20° 21° 19° 18° 22° 18–22°
6d · 2026-08-14 21° 19° 17° 17° 19° 17° 17–21°
5d · 2026-08-15 21° 22° 19° 17° 20° 17° 24° 17–24°
4d · 2026-08-16 20° 21° 18° 18° 20° 17° 21° 17–21°
3d · 2026-08-17 20° 22° 19° 18° 21° 16° 18° 16–22°
2d · 2026-08-18 20° 23° 19° 17° 21° 16° 21° 16–23°
1d · 2026-08-19 20° 24° 18° 17° 20° 17° 19° 17–24°
0d · 2026-08-20 20° 22° 18° 17° 20° 16° 18° 16–22°
actual 18°

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 SFOC1 observations. Archive depth varies by city; receipts exist only for dates the archive watched arrive.