Was the forecast right for Washington on Thu Jul 30?
Washington, District of Columbia · daily high temperature · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against ERA5
3 days out, 7 models put Washington's Thu Jul 30 high anywhere from 80° to 86°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 86°. ERA5 says the day verified at 87° — cloudy.
GFS landed closest, off by 0.1°. GEM ran 4° hot.
What every model said, at every lead
Daily-high calls for Thu Jul 30 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 Washington scoreboard shows them, labelled.
| Lead | AIFS | AIGFS | ECMWF | GEM | GFS | ICON | UKMO | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3d · 2026-07-27 | 84° | 81° | 82° | 83° | 80° | 80° | 86° | 80–86° |
| 2d · 2026-07-28 | 86° | 80° | 84° | 85° | 84° | 82° | 81° | 80–86° |
| 1d · 2026-07-29 | 88° | 84° | 86° | 91° | 83° | 84° | 86° | 83–91° |
| 0d · 2026-07-30 | 87° | 85° | 86° | 91° | 87° | 84° | 84° | 84–91° |
| actual | 87° |
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 Washington — 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.