Was the forecast right for Washington on Fri Jul 31?
Washington, District of Columbia · daily high temperature · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against ERA5
4 days out, 7 models put Washington's Fri Jul 31 high anywhere from 84° to 88°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 90°. ERA5 says the day verified at 90° — cloudy.
GFS landed closest, off by 0.2°. GEM ran 4° hot.
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 Washington scoreboard shows them, labelled.
| Lead | AIFS | AIGFS | ECMWF | GEM | GFS | ICON | UKMO | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4d · 2026-07-27 | 87° | 85° | 86° | 87° | 84° | 88° | 87° | 84–88° |
| 3d · 2026-07-28 | 88° | 86° | 86° | 88° | 87° | 82° | 84° | 82–88° |
| 2d · 2026-07-29 | 89° | 86° | 90° | 90° | 90° | 90° | 84° | 84–90° |
| 1d · 2026-07-30 | 90° | 87° | 92° | 96° | 90° | 88° | 87° | 87–96° |
| 0d · 2026-07-31 | 90° | 88° | 92° | 94° | 90° | 89° | 87° | 87–94° |
| actual | 90° |
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.