Was the forecast right for Washington on Wed Aug 5?
Washington, District of Columbia · daily high temperature · forecasts from each model's archived runs, verified against ERA5
9 days out, 4 models put Washington's Wed Aug 5 high anywhere from 84° to 96°; by the final call the field had settled to a median of 86°. ERA5 says the day verified at 86° with 0.56 in of precipitation — rain.
ICON landed closest, off by 0.1°. GEM ran 3° hot.
What every model said, at every lead
Daily-high calls for Wed Aug 5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9d · 2026-07-27 | 84° | 88° | 89° | — | 96° | — | — | 84–96° |
| 8d · 2026-07-28 | 89° | 88° | 82° | 89° | 95° | — | — | 82–95° |
| 7d · 2026-07-29 | 88° | 87° | 86° | 87° | 90° | — | — | 86–90° |
| 6d · 2026-07-30 | 79° | 86° | 87° | 91° | 87° | 88° | — | 79–91° |
| 5d · 2026-07-31 | 89° | 92° | 93° | 87° | 92° | 88° | 89° | 87–93° |
| 4d · 2026-08-01 | 86° | 90° | 86° | 86° | 91° | 87° | 92° | 86–92° |
| 3d · 2026-08-02 | 86° | 84° | 87° | 88° | 88° | 88° | 89° | 84–89° |
| 2d · 2026-08-03 | 85° | 84° | 83° | 87° | 85° | 83° | 85° | 83–87° |
| 1d · 2026-08-04 | 85° | 83° | 84° | 90° | 82° | 87° | 88° | 82–90° |
| 0d · 2026-08-05 | 86° | 84° | 88° | 89° | 86° | 86° | 87° | 84–89° |
| actual | 86° |
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.